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Number 307. 



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it the Foit-Qflice at Nea York as Secmd-claaa Mail Matter, 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS 



OF 



JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



PREPARED FOR PUBLICATION B* 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 




*3 ) 



Edited by JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, 




JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 
From a miniature in possession of J. A. Fronde, Esq. 



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W. Clark Russkli 

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26 



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Number 307. 



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Subscription Price per Year of 62 Numbers, $10. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS 



OF 



JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 

PREPARED FOR I UBLICATION BY 

THOMAS CARLYLE. 

Edited by JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. 



TWO VOLUMES IN ONE.— Vol. I. 



PREFACE. 

The Letters which form these volumes were placed in my 
hands by Mr. Carlyle in 1871. They are annotated throughout 
by himself. The few additional observations occasionally required 
are marked with my initials. 

I have not thought it necessary to give an introductory narrative 
of Mrs. Carlyle's previous history, the whole of it being already 
related in my account of the ' first forty years ' of her husband's 
life. To this I must ask the reader who wishes for information to 
be so good as to refer. 

Mr. Carlyle did not order the publication of these Letters, though 
he anxiously desired it. He left the decision to Mr. Forster, Air. 
John Carlyle. and myself. Mr. Forster and Mr. John Carlyle 
having both died in Mr. Carlyle's lifetime, the responsibility fell 
entirely upon me. Mr. Carlyle asked me, a few months before 
his end. what I meant to do. I told him that, when the ' Reminis- 
cences ' had been published. I had decided that the Letters might 
and should be published also. 

Mr. Carlyle requested in his will that my judgment in the mat- 
ter should be accepted as his own. 

J. A. FROUDE. 

5 Onslow Gardens: 

February 28, 1883. 



LETTER I. 



'Tuesday, June 10, 1834,' it appears, was the date of our alighting, 
amid heaped furniture, in this house, where we were to continue 
for life. I well remember bits of the drive from Ampton Street; 
what damp-clouded kind of sky it was; how, in crossing Belgrave 
Square, Chico, her little canary-bird, whom she had brought "from 
Craigenputtock in her lap. burst out into singing, which we all 
('Bessy Barnet.'our romantic maid, sat with us in the old hackney 
coach) strove to accept as a promising omen. The business of sort- 
ing and settling, with two or three good carpenters, &c, already 
on the ground, was at once gone into, with boundless alacrity, and 
(under such management as hers) went on at a mighty rate; even 
the three or four days of quasi-camp life, or gypsy life, had a kind 
of gay charm to us; and hour by hour we saw the confusion abat- 
ing, growing into victorious order. Leigh Hunt was continually 



sending us notes; most probably would in person step across be- 
fore bedtime, and give us an hour of the prettiest melodious dis- 
course. In about a week (it seems to me) all was swept and gar- 
nished, fairly habitable; and continued incessantly to get itself pol- 
ished, civilised, and beautified to a degree that surprised one. I 
have elsewhere alluded to all that, and to my little Jeannie's conduct 
of it: heroic, lovely, pathetic, mournfully beautiful, as in the light 
of eternity, that little scene of time now looks to me. From birth 
upwards she had lived in opulence; and now, for my sake, had be- 
come poor — so nobly poor. Truly, her pretty little brag (in this 
letter) was well founded. No such houses, for beautiful thrift, quiet, 
spontaneous, nay, as it were, unconscious — minimum of money rec- 
onciled to human comfort and human dignity — have I anywhere 
looked upon where I have been. 

From the first, or nearly so, I had resolved upon the ' French 
Revolution,' and was reading, studying, ransacking the Museum 
(to little purpose) with all my might. Country health was still 
about me; heart and strength still fearless of any toil. The weather 
was very hot; defying it (in hard, almost brimless hat, which 
was obbligato in that time of slavery) did sometimes throw me into 
colic; the Museum collection of 'French Pamphlets,' the complet- 
est of its sort in the world, did, after six weeks of baffled wrestle, 
prove inaccessible to me; and I had to leave them there — so strong 
was Chaos and Co. in that, direction. Happily, John Mill had corne 
to my aid, and the Paris ' Histoire Parlementaire ' began to appear. 
Mill had himself great knowledge of the subject. He sent me 
down all his own books on the subject (almost a cartload), and was 
generously profuse and unwearied in every kind of furtherance. He 
had taken a great attachment to me (which lasted about ten years, 
and then suddenly ended, I never knew how); an altogether clear, 
logical, honest, amicable, affectionate young man, and respected as 
such here, though sometimes felt to be rather colourless, even aque- 
ous — no religion in almost any form traceable in him. He was 
among our chief visitors and social elements at that time. Came 
to us in the evenings once or twice a week; walked with me on Sun- 
days, &c. ; with a great deal of discourse not worthless to me in its 
kind. Still prettier were Leigh Hunt's little nights with us; fig- 
ure and bearing of the man, of a perfectly graceful, spontaneously 
original, dignified and attractive kind. Considerable sense of hu- 
mour in him; a very pretty little laugh, sincere and cordial always; 
many tricksy turns of witty insight, of intellect, of phrase; counte- 
nance, tone and eyes well seconding; his voice, in the finale of it. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



had a kind of musical warble (' chirl ' we vernacularly called it) 
which reminded one of singing-birds. He came always rather scru- 
pulously, though most simply and modestly, dressed. ' Kind of Talk 
ing Nightingale,' we privately called him — name first due to her. 
He enjoyed much, and with a kind of chivalrous silence and respect, 
her Scotch tunes on the piano, most of which he knew already, and 
their Burns or other accompaniment: this was commonly enough 
the wind-up of our evening; 'supper' being ordered (uniformly 
'porridge' of Scotch oatmeal), most likely the piano, on some hint, 
would be opened, and continue till the ' porridge ' came — a tiny 
basiu of which Hunt always took, and ate with a teaspoon, to sugar, 
and many praises of the excellent frugal and noble article. It seems 
to me, in our long, dim-lighted, perfectly neat and quaint room, 
these 'evening parties' of three were altogether human and beau 
tiful; perhaps the best I anywhere had before or since! Allan 
Cunningham occasionally walked down; pleasant enough to talk 
-with — though the topic was sure to be Nithsdale (mainly Nithsdale 
fun), and nothing else. Mrs. Austin, Mrs. Buller, Darwin, Wedg- 
wood, &c, &c. ("I this or shortly posterior dates), I do not men- 
tion. I was busy; she still more hopefully and gaily so; and in 
what is called 'society,' or London interests for us. there was no 
lack. — Of all which, these 'Letters,' accidental waifs among such 
multitudes as have carelessly perished, are now the only record. 

I perfectly recollect the day this following letter describes, though 
I could not have given the date, even by year. ' Macqueen and 
Thomson ' were two big graziers of respectability, Macqueen a na- 
tive of Craigcnputtock, Thomson, from near Annan, had been a 
school-fellow of mine. They had called here without very specific 
errand; aud I confess what the letter intimates (of my silent wish 
to have evaded such interruption, &c, &c.) is the exact truth. 

' Traiked' means perished, contemptuous term, applied to cattle, 
&c. ' Traik ' =: German ' Dreck.' To ' bankrupt' ' is to ' bankrupt ' 
(used as a verb passive). ' Aud then he bankrapit. and geed out o' 
sicht:' a phrase of my father's in the little sketches of Annandale 
biography he would sometimes give me. During two wholly wet 
days, on my last visit to Scotsbrig in 1830. he gave me a whole 
series of such ; clearest brief portraiture and life-history of all the 
noteworthy, vanished figures whom I had known by look only, and 
now wished to understand. Such a set of Schilderungen (human 
delineations of human life), so admirably brief, luminous, true, and 
man-like, as I never had before or since. I have heard Words- 
worth, somewhat on similar terms (twice over had him in a corner 
engaged on this topic, which was his best) ; but even Wordsworth 
was inferior. — T. C. 

To Mrs. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea: Sept. 1, 1834. 

My dear Mother, — Could I have supposed it possible that any 
mortal was so stupid as not to feel disappointed in receiving a let- 
ter from me instead of my husband. I should have written to you 
very long ago. But while this humility becomes me, it is also my 
duty (too long neglected) to send a little adjunct to my husband's 
letter, just to assure you ' with my own hand ' that I continue to 
love you amidst the hubbub of this ' noble city' ' just the same as 
in the quiet of Craigcnputtock, and to cherish a grateful recollec- 
tion of 3'our many kindnesses to me; especially of that magnani- 
mous purpose to ' sit at my bedside' through the night preceding 
my departure, 'that I might be sure to sleep!' I certainly shall 
never forget that night aud the several preceding and following; 
but for the kindness and helpfulness shown me on all hands, 1 
must have traiked, one would suppose. I had every reason to be 
thankful then to Providence and my friends, and have had the 
same reason since. 

All things, since we came here, have gone more smoothly with us 
than I at all anticipated. Our little household has been set up again 
at a quite moderate expense of money and trouble ; wherein I cannot 
help thinking, with a chastened vanity, that the superior shiftiness and 
thriftiness of the Scotch character has strikingly manifested itself. 
The English women turn up the whites of their eyes, and call on 
the ' good heavens ' at the bare idea of enterprises which seem to 
me in the most ordinary course of human affairs. I told Mrs. 
Hunt, one day, I had been very busy painting. 'What?' she 
asked, ' is it a portrait? ' 'Oh! no,' I told her, ' something of more 
importance — a large wardrobe.' She could not imagine, she said, 
' how I could have patience for such things? ' And so, having no 
patience for them herself, what is the result? She is every other 
day reduced to borrow my tumblers, my teacups; even a cupful 
of porridge, a few spoonfuls of tea, are begged of me, because 
' Missus has got company, and happens to lie out of the article; ' 
in plain unadorned English, because ' missus' is the most wretched 
of managers, and is often at the point of having not a copper in her 
purse. To see how they live and waste here, it is a wonder the 
whole city does not ' bankrape, and go out o' sicht'; — flinging 
platefuls of what they are pleased to denominate 'crusts' (that is 
what I consider all the best of the bread) into the ashpits! I often 
say, with honest self-congratulation, ' In Scotland we have no such 
think as "crusts."' On the whole, though the English ladies seem 
to have their wits more at their finger-ends, and have a great advan- 

1 Phrase of Basil Montague's. 



tage over me in that respect, I never cease to be glad that I was 
born mi the ot her side of the Tweed, and that those who are nearest 
and dearest to me are Scotch. 

I must tell you what Carlyle will not tell of himself — that he is 
rapidly mending of his Craigenputtock gloom and acerbity. He is 
really at times a tolerably social character, and seems to be regarded 
witli a feeling of mingled terror and love in all companies; which I 
should expect the diffusion of Teufelsdrockh will tend to increase. 

I have just been called away to John Macqueen, who was fol- 
lowed by a Jack Thomson, of Annan, whom I received in my 
choicest mood, to make amends for Carlyle's unreadiness — who was 
positively going to let him leave the door without asking him in; a 
neglect which he would have reproached himself with after. 

My love to all. Tell my kind Mary to write to me; she is the 
only one that ever does. 

Your affectionate 

Jane W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 2. 

Mournfully beautiful is this letter to me; a clear little house- 
hold light shining, pure aud brilliant, in the dark obstructive places 
of the past! 

The 'two East Lothian friends' are George Rennie, then sculp- 
tor, and li is pretty sister, Mrs. Manderston, wife of an ex-Indian 
ship captain. 

'Eliza Miles' and 'the Mileses' are the good people in Ampton 
Street with whom we lodged; Eliza, their daughter, felt quite 
captivated with my Jane, and seems to have vowed eternal loyalty 
to her almost at first sight; was for coming to be our servant at 
Craigenputtock (actually wrote proposing it then — a most tempting 
offer to us, had not the rough element aud the delicate aspirant 
been evidently irreconcilable!). She continued to visit us here, 
at modest intervals; wrote me, after my calamity befel, the one 
letter of condolence I could completely read (still extant, and 
almost worth adjoining here), she was a very pretty and, to us, in- 
teresting specimen of the London maiden of the middle classes; 
refilled, polite, pious, clever both of hand and mind; no gentle- 
woman could have a more upright, modest, affectionate and un- 
consciously high demeanour. Her father had long been in prosper- 
ous upholsterer business ('Miles and Edwards,' as we sometimes 
heard), but the firm had latterly gone awry, and poor Miles now 
went about as a 'traveller' (showing specimens, &c), where he 
had formerly been one of the commanders-in-chief. He was a 
very good-natured, respectable mau; quietly much sympathised 
with in his own house. Eliza, with her devout temper, had been 
drawn to Edward Irving; went daily, alone of her family, to his 
chapel, in those years 1831-2, aud was to the last one of his most 
reverent disciples. She did, in her soft loyal way, right well in 
the world; married poorly enough, but wisely, and is still living, 
a how rich man's wife, and the mother of prosperous sons and 
daughters. 

'Buller's Radical meeting,' had one an old newspaper, would 
give us an exact date- it was the meeting, privately got up by C. 
Buller, but ostensibly managed by others, which assembled itself 
largely and witli emphasis in the London Tavern, to say what it 
thought on the first reappearance of Peel and Co. after the Re- 
forniBill, 'first Peel Ministry,' which lasted only a short time. I 
duly attended the meeting (never another in my life); and remem- 
bered it well. Had some interest, not much. The 2,000 human 
figures, wedged iu the huge room into one dark mass, were singu- 
lar to look dowu upon, singular to hear their united voice, coming 
clearly as from one heart; their fiery 'Yes,' their sternly bellow- 
ing 'No.' (Camille Desmoulins in the Palais-Royal Gardens, not 
long afterwards! ') I could notice, too, what new laws there were 
of speaking to such a mass; no matter how intensely consentaneous 
your 2,000 were, and how much you agreed with every one of 
them; you must likewise begin where they began, follow pretty 
exactly their sequence of thoughts, or they lost sight of your inten- 
tion; and, lor noise of contradiction to* you aud to one another, 
you could not be heard at all. That was new to me. that second 
thing; and little or nothing else was. In the speeches I had no 
interest, except a phenomenal; indeed, had to disagree through- 
out, more or less with every part of them. Roebuck knew the art 
best; kept the 2,000 in constant reverberation, more and more rap- 
turous, by his adroitly correct series of commonplaces; John Craw- 
furd, much more original, lost the series, and had to sit down again 
unheard — ignominiously unheard. Ohe jam satis est. I walked 
briskly home, much musing; found her waiting, eager enough for 
any news I had. — T. C. 

To Mrs. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea: End of November [Nov. 21], 1834.' 
My dear Mother,— Now that franks are come back into the world, 
one need not wait for an inspired moment to write; if one's letter 

1 'Afterwards:' when Carlyle came to write ahout Camille in the French 
Revolution.— J. A. F. 

2 About a month before this date, Edward Irving rode to the door one even- 
ing, came in and stayed witli ns some twenty minutes, the one call we ever 
had of him here— his farewell call before setting out to ride towards Glasgow, 
as the doctors, helpless otherwise, had ordered. He was very friendly, calm 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



is worth nothing, it costs nothing — nor will any letter that tells you 
of our welfare and assures you of our continual affection, be worth 
nothing in your eyes, ever destitute of news or anything else that 
might make it entertaining. 

The weather is grown horribly cold, and I am chiefly intent, at 
present, on getting my winter wardrobe into order. I have made 
up the old black gown (which was dyed puce for me at Dumfries), 
with my own hands; it looks twenty per cent, better than when it 
was new; and I shall get no other this winter. I am now turning 
my pelisse. I went yesterday to a milliner's to buy a bonnet: an 
old, very ugly lady, upwards of seventy, I am sure, was bargaining 
about a cloak at the same place; it was a fine affair of satin and 
velvet; but she declared repeatedly that 'it had no air,' and for her 
part she could not put on such a thing. My bonnet, I flatter my- 
self, has an air; a little brown feather nods over the front of it, and 
the crown points like a sugar-loaf ! The diameter of the fashion- 
able ladies at present is about three yards; their bustles (false bot- 
toms) are the size of an ordinary sheep's fleece. The very servant- 
girls wear bustles: Eliza Miles told me a maid of theirs went out 
one Sunday with three kitchen dusters pinned on as a substitute. 

The poor Mileses are in great affliction. Mr. Miles, about the 
time we came to London, got into an excellent situation, and they 
were just beginning to feel independent, and looked forward to a 
comfortable future, when one morning, about a week ago, Mr. 
Miles, in walking through his warerooms, was noticed to stagger; 
and one of the men ran and caught him as he was falling: he was 
carried to a public-house close by (his own house being miles off), 
and his wife and daughter sent for. He never spoke to them; 
could never be removed; but there, in the midst of confusion and 
riot, they sat watching him for two days, when he expired. I went 
up to see them so soon as I heard of their misfortune. The wife 
was confined to bed with inflammation in her head. Poor Eliza was 
up, and resigned-looking, but the picture of misery. ' A gentleman 
from Mr. Irviug's church ' was with her, saying what he could. 

A brother and sister, the most intimate friends I ever had in 
East Lothian, live quite near (for London), and I have other 
East Lothian acquaintances. Mrs. Hunt I shall soon be quite 
terminated with, I foresee. She torments my life out with bor- 
rowing. She actually borrowed one of the brass fenders the 
other day, and I had difficulty in getting it out of her hands; 
irons, glasses, tea-cups, silver spoons, are in constant requisition; 
and when one sends for them the whole number can never be 
found. Is it not a shame to manage so, with eight guineas a 
week to keep house on! It makes me very indignant to see all the 
waste that goes on around me, when I am needing so much care 
and calculation to make ends meet. When we dine out, to see as 
much money expended on a dessert of fruit (for no use but to give 
people a colic) as would keep us in necessaries for two or three 
weeks! My present maid has a grand uncle in town with upwards 
of a hundred thousand pounds, who drives his carriage and all 
that; at. a great dinner he had, he gave five pounds for a couple of 
pineapples when scarce; and here is his niece working all the year 
through for eight, and he has never given her a brass farthing 
since she came to Loudon. 

My mother gave a good account of your looks. I hope you will 
go and see her again for a longer time. She was so gratified by 
your visit. I have just had a letter from her, most satisfactory, tell- 
ing me all she knows about any of you. She gives a most wonder- 
ful account of some transcendentally beautiful shawl which Jane 
had made her a present of. I am sure never present gave more 
contentment. 

Carlyle is going to a Radical meeting to-night, but there is no 
fear of his getting into mischief. Curiosity is his only motive — 
and I must away to the butcher's to get his dinner. I wish you 
may be able to read what I have written. I write with a steel 
pen, which is a very unpliable concern, and has almost cut into 
my finger. God bless you all. A kiss to Mary's new baby when 
you see it. 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 3. 

Postscript to some letter of mine, announcing brother John's 
speedy advent from Italy, and visit to Scotsbrig as his next step. 

The 'wee wains' (weans) are sister Mary's, sister Jean's, and 
brother Alick's; 'wee Jane,' her namesake, is brother Alicks eld- 
est. 'Mighty nation' had this origin (derived by tradition of 
mine): My mother, in the act of removing from Ecclefechan, to 
Mainhill (in 1816), which was a serious new adventure to the fam- 
ily and her, had, as she privately told me, remembered vividly the 
first time she came down that road, riding towards Ecclefechan, as 
a little girl behind her father — towards an aunt, and unknown for- 
tune in that new country — and how she could now piously say of 

and affectionate; spoke, chivalrously courteous, to her (as I remember): 'Ah, 
yes,' looking round the room, ' You are like an Eve. make every place you 
live in beautiful] 1 He was not sad in manner, but was at heart, as you 
could notice— serious, even solemn. Darkness at hand, and the weather 
damp, he could not loiter. I saw him mount at the door, watched till he 
turned the first corner (close by the rector's garden-door), and had vanished 
from us for altogether. He died at Glasgow before the end of December 
coming. 



herself, like Jacob, 'Now hath the Lord made of me a great na- 
tion.' Good dear mother! 

I almost think this promised visit to Scotland did not take effect 
—John's own part of it having failed, and general uncertainty hav- 
ing thereupon supervened. I was myself in dreadful struggle ' 
with the burnt first volume of 'French Revolution;' miserable ac- 
cident which had befallen three months before this date; but which 
(having persisted to finish 'Book i. Vol. II.,' before turning back) 
I had now first practically grappled with, and found how near it 
bordered on the absolutely insuperable! certainly the impossiblest- 
looking literary problem I ever had: 'resembles swimming in an 
element not of water, but of quasi-vacuum,' said I mournfully, al- 
most desperately: 'by main force, impossible, I find! '—and so had 
flung it all by, about this date; and for four weeks was reading the 
trashiest heap of novels (Marryat's, &c.) to hush down my mind, 
and, as it were, bury the disaster under ashes for a time. About 
July I cautiously, gingerly, stept up to the affair again, and grad- 
ually got it done. How my darling behaved under all this, with 
what heroism and what love, I have mentioned elsewhere. I find 
she renounced Scotland for this year, and instead appointed her 
mother to come and visit us here, which did take effect, as will be 
seen.— T. C. 

To Mrs. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea: Maya, 1835. 

I too am coming, dear mother, and expect a share of the wel- 
come! For though I am no son, nor even much worth as a daugh- 
ter, you have a heart where there is 'coot and coom again.'* I 
think of nothing so much at present as this journey to Scotland; 
all the sea-sickness and fatigues of my former journeys do not 
damp my ardour for this one. 

Carlyle has not told you a piece of news we heard yesterday, so 
curious as to be worth recording. Mrs. Badams, who a year and 
a half ago made such outrageous weeping and wailing over the 
death of her husband, is on the eve of a second marriage (has been 
engaged for months back) to a Frenchman who is— her own half- 
nephew! ! ! the son of a sister who was daughter to the same father 
by a former wife! Such things, it seems, are tolerated in France; 
to us here it seems rather shocking. Such is the upshot of all poor 
Badam's labours and anxieties, and sacrifices of soul and body, in 
amassing money ! Himself lies killed, with brandy and vexation, 
in a London churchyard; and the wreck of his wealth goes to sup- 
ply the extravagances of a rabble of French who have neither com- 
mon sense nor common decency. 

I have just had a call from an old rejected lover, who has been 
in India these ten years: though he has come home with more 
thousands of pounds than we are ever likely to have hundreds, or 
even scores, the sight of him did not make me doubt the wisdom of 
my preference. Indeed, I continue quite content with my bargain; 
I could wish him a little less yellow, and a little more peaceable; but 
that is all. 

What a quantity of wee icains I shall have to inspect! though I 
doubt if any of them will equal the first wee Jane, whom I hope 
they are not suffering to forget me. Truly you are become ' a 
mighty nation '! God prosper it! 

Your affectionate 

Jane Welsh Carlyle. 

LETTER 4. 

Susan Hunter of St. Andrews, now and long since Mrs. Stirling 
of Edinburgh, was daughter of a Professor Hunter in St. Andrews 
University, and granddaughter of a famous do. do., whose editions 
of Virgil, and various other Latin classics, all excellently printed 
in the little county town of Cupar, Fife, are held in deserved es- 
teem, not among ourselves only, but in Germany itself, by the best 
judges there. 

To an elder sister of this Susan the afterwards famous Francis 
Jeffrey, then a young Edinburgh advocate, had been wedded, and 
was greatly attached; but she soon died from him and left him a 
childless widower. A second sister of Susan's, I believe, had mar- 
ried John Jeffrey, younger and only brother of Francis; but she 
too had died, and there were no children left. John Jeffrey fol- 
lowed no profession, had wandered about the world, at one time 
been in America, in revolutionary France, but had since settled 
pleasantly in Edinburgh within reach of his brother, and was a 
very gentle, affectionate, pleasantly social and idly ingenious man. 
I remember Susan and her one younger sister as living often with 
John Jeffrey; I conclude it was at Craigcrook, at Francis Jeffrey's 
that we had made acquaintance with her. She was a tall, lean, 
cleanly trim and wise-looking, though by no means beautiful wom- 
an, except that her face and manners expressed nothing that was 
not truthful, simple, rational, modest though decided. Susan and 

1 1 may mention here a fact connected with the burning of this MS. Mill had 
borrowed it to read, and when in his hands it was in some way destroyed: he 
came himself to Cheyne Row to confess what had happened. He sat three 
hours trying to talk of other subjects. When he went away at last, Mrs. Car- 
lyle told me that the first words which Carlyle spoke were: ' Weill Mill, poor 
fellow, is very miserable; we must try to keep from him how serious the losa 
is to us.'— J. A. F. 

* 'The grace of God, brethren,' said some (mythical) Methodist, 'is like a 
round of beef; there is coot and,' &c. 



6 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



a brother of hers, John, who sometimes visited here in after times, 
and is occasionally mentioned in these letters, had a great admira- 
tion and even affection for Leigh Hunt, to whom Johu was often 
actually mbwntive. Susan's mild love for poor Hunt, sparkling 
through her old-maidish, cold, still, exterior, was sometimes amus- 
ingly noticeable. — T. C. 

To Mm Hunter, Millfield Home, Edmonton. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: June 1835. 

My dear Susan Hunter,— What au infidel you are to dream of 
my ever forgetting either your existence or your kindness! Worn 
an though I be, and though Mr. Johu Jeffrey once said of me (not 
in my hearing) that I was ' distinguished as a flirt' in my time, I 
can tell you few people are as steady in their attachments. That 
I was attached to you, a person of your quick penetration could 
hardly fail to observe. 

You were very kind to me; and that was not all; you were sev- 
eral things that women rarely are, straightforward and' clear-sigh ted, 
among the rest, and sol liked you, and have continued to like you 
to this hour. Never have I thought of Edinburgh since we left it 
without thinking of you and the agreeable evenings I spent with 
you. 

Such being the case, you may believe it is with heartfelt glad- 
ness that I find you are again within reach. Do come to-morrow 
evening or Thursday, whichever suits you best, and know that we 
possess the rarest of London accommodations, a spare bed; so that 
if you consider the thing in the same reasonable light that I do, you 
will undoubtedly stay all night. 

My dear Susan (do let me dispense with formalites), I am so glad 
that I have not even taken time to mend my pen. 

Your affectionate friend 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 5. 

Letter to John Sterling; probably her first. Our acquaintance 
then was but of few weeks' standing. This letter and all the fol- 
lowing to the same address were carefully laid together under 
sealed cover 'Aug. 14, 1845,' in Sterling's still steady hand; and 
mournfully came back to us in the course of a few weeks longer. — 
T. C. 

To the Rev. John Sterling, Herstmonceux. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Thursday, June 15, 1835. 

My dear Sir, — You did kindly to send the little separate note. 
The least bit 'all to myself,' as the children say, was sure to give 
me a livelier pleasure than any number of sheets in which I had 
but a secondary interest; for, in spite of the honestest efforts to 
annihilate my I-ety, or merge it in what the world doubtless con- 
siders my better half, I still find myself a self-subsisting, and, alas! 
self-seeking ««.;. Little Felix, in the ' Wanderjalue,' when, in the 
midst of an animated scene between Wilhelm and Theresa, he pulls 
Theresa's gown, and calls out, 'Mama Theresa, I too am here!' 
only speaks out with the charming trustfulness of a little child what 
I am perpetually feeling, though too sophisticated to pull people's 
skirts or exclaim in so many words, ' Mr. Sterling, I too am here.' 

But I must tell you I find a grave fault in that note — about the 
last fault I should have dreamt of finding in any utterance of 
yours- — it is not believing, but faithless! In the first place, the 
parenthesis ('if ever') seems to me a wilful questioning of the 
goodness of Providence. Then you say, if in some weeks I can 
bring myself to think of you with patience, &c, &c. Now both 
the 'if and 'perhaps' displease me. Only the most inveterate 
sceptic could, with your fineness of observation, have known me 
for two weeks without certifying himself that my patience is in- 
finite, inexhaustible! that, in fact, I, as well as yourself, combine 
'the wisdom of Solomon with the patience of Job!' Far from 
being offended by your dissertation on the ' Sartor,' ' I think it the 
best that has been said or sung of him. Even where }'Our criticism 
does not quite fall in with my humble views. I still love the spirit 
of the critic. For instance, I am loth to believe that I have mar- 
ried a Pagan; but I approve entirely of the warmth with which 
you warn your friend against the delusion of burning pastilles be- 
fore a statue of Jupiter, and such like extravagances. I suppose it 
is excessively heterodox, and in a Catholic country I should be 
burnt for it, but to you I may safely confess that I care almost 
nothing about what a man believes in comparison with how he 
believes. If his belief be correct it is much the better for himself; 
but its intensity, its efficacy, is the ground on which I love and 
trust him. Thus, you see, I am capable of appreciating your fer- 
vour in behalf of the Thirty-nine Articles, without being afflicted 
because my husband is accused of contumacy against them. 

But what do you mean by speaking of 'a few weeks'? When 
you went, you said, with an appearance at least of good faith, that. 
you would be back in London in three weeks: and one week and 
half of another is already gone. I hope you will keep your time for 
several reasons: chiefly for this one, that our continuance in London 
has, of late days, become more uncertain, the American speculation 
having suddenly received a more practical form; and if we depart 

> Herstmonceux, May 29, 1835 (Life uf Sterling, 1864 edit., p. 374). 



for Scotland without seeing you any more, and afterwards our good 
or evil star actually shoots over the Atlantic, surely, to some of us 
at Jeast it will be a matter of regret rather than of self -congratula- 
tion that our acquaintance should have begun. 

I have seen your mother twice. She is very good to me. I have, 
moreover, been reviving one of my young lady accomplishments 
for her sake; painting flowers on a portfolio, to keep those verses 
in, which she was so troubled about losing. Your father has been 
here since I began writing, to ask us to dinner on Saturday. We 
played a drawn game at chess, and Carlyle and he debated, more 
loudly than logically, on the subject of Napoleon's morality. He 
is just gone to inquire about the house in Cheyne Walk, in which 
good work I was meaning to have forestalled him, and commun- 
icated the result in my letter. If a fairy would grant me three 
wishes this evening, my first would be that we might remain where 
we are, my second that you might be settled in Cheyne Walk, and 
the third, like a thrifty Scotchwoman, I would beg leave to lay by 
in reserve for future need. And now I must go and array myself 
with all possible splendour for a rout at Mrs. Buller's, 1 where 
O'Connell is to be, and all the earth — that is to say, all the Radical 
earth. Wish me good speed. May I offer my good wishes, and 
prospective regards to your wife? 

Affectionately yours, 

Jane W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 6. 

To Miss Hunter, Millfield House, Edmonton. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Thursday [July?] 1835. 

Dear, — I am too essentially Scotch not to give due heed to the 
proverb ' it is good to make hay while the sun shines,' which 
means, in the present case, it is good to catch hold of a friend 
while she is in the humour. But I have been provokingly hindered 
from acting up to niy principle by the prolonged absence of my 
usual domestic, which has kept us until the present day in 'the 
valley of the shadow' of charwoman; and, thoroughgoing as I 
know you to be, I feared to invite you to participate therein. 
Now, however, I have got the deficiency supplied, after a more 
permanent and comfortable fashion, and make haste to say 'come 
and stay.' Come, dear Susan, and let us make the best of this 
'very penetrating world ' — as a maid of my mother's used to call it 
in vapourish moods — come and wind me up again, as you have 
often done before when I was quite run down, so that, from being 
a mere senseless piece of lumber, I began to tick and tell people what 
o'clock it was. Will you come in the ensuing week? Name your 
own time, only remember the sooner the better, 

My kind regards to Mr. John when you write, and to your sister. 
Do you remember her physiological observation on hens? 2 

I "hear nothing of his lordship, 3 but the'fault is my own. 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane Carlyle, 

Do not be after thinking that I have lost the power to write more 
legibly. I am just out of one of my headaches — my hand shakes. 
No Miss , 4 however, stept in out of space to drive me to ex- 
tremity. Oh, the horror of that moment 1 

LETTER 7. 

Mrs. Welsh was to come about the end of August. I was now 
getting tolerably on with my 'burnt MS.,' and could see the bless- 
ed end of it lying ahead — had, probably, myself resolved on a run 
to Annandale, by way of bonfire on that victorious event. At least, 
I did go for a week or two, it appears, and brought up an Annan 
maidservant with me, one ' Anne Cook,' who proved peaceable and 
obedient for a j'ear or more afterwards. The continual trouble my 
brave little woman bore — all of it kept quiet from me, result quasi- 
perfect, of his own accord, when it came to me — is now, to look 
back upon, tragically beautiful! That 'miraculous Irish Roman 
Catholic ' proved utterly a failure before long. 

The Wilsons of the 'Madeira hamper,' and of many other kind 
procedures and feelings towards us, were an opulent brother and 
sister of considerably cultivated and most orthodox type (especially 
the sister), whom we had met with at Henry Taylor's, and who held 
much to us for many years — indeed, the sister did (though now 
fallen deaf, &c.) till my dear one was snatched away. I think they 
both yet live (2 Upper Ecclestou Street), but I shudder to call, and 
shall likely see them no more. Many dinners — James Spedding, 
Reverend Maurice, John Sterling (once or twice), James Stephen 
(afterwards Sir James), Pcrrot of Edinburgh (who was the brother 
of 'Tom Wilson's' Cambridge old friend), &c, &c. — many dinners 
brilliantly complete, and with welcome glad and hearty, at which, 
however, 1 would rather not have been. 

The coterie-speech abounds in this letter; more witty and amus- 

1 I remember this ' Buller Soiree,' with ' O'Connell and all the Radical 
earth ' there; good enough for looking at slightly, as in a menagerie. O'Con- 
nell I had already seen the figure of, heard the voice of, somewhere; speak to 
him I never did, nor, in the end, would have done. 

2 Lost to me, or gone to the remnant of an indistinguishable shadow (1873). 

3 Lord-Advocate Jeffrey. 

4 A rather bouncing young Edinburgh lady, daughter of , not in the 

highest esteem everywhere. Her 'stepping in ' (two years ago, in the Edin- 
burgh winter) I have forgotten. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



ing, much, very much, to the first reader than it can now ever he 
to another. Explanation I must add at any rate. ' Blessings &c. 
over my head:' Extempore public prayer: 'Lord, we thank Thee 
for the many blessings Thou art making to pass over our heads.' 
'Encouragement:' Cumberland man (to me), concerning a squire 
whose son and he had quite quarrelled: ' Feayther gives him nea 
encouragement.' ' Arnot,' a little laird, come almost to starvation 
by drinking, &c. A poor creditor, unpayable, overheard Mrs. A. 
whispering, ' Let us keep,' &c. ' Victualling: ' Old Johnnie Mac- 
caw (McC'all), a strange old Galloway peasant of our Craigenput- 
tock neighbourhood, who witnessed the beginning of settlement 
in 1834, had asked my sister Mary, 'D'ye victual a' thae folk? 
Ai what a victualling they wull tak! ' 

I recollect the evening with the Degli Antonis — that eveningl 
all gone, all goue! (Dumfries, August 16, 1868).— T. C. 

To Mrs. Aitken, Dumfries. 

Chelsea: Aug. 1835. 

My dear Jane, — Even the doubt expressed in your last letter about 
the durability of my affection was more agreeable to me than the 
brief notice which you usually put me off with, ' remember us to Mrs. 
Carlyle,' or still worse, ' remember us to your lady.' I have told you 
often that it afflicts me to be always, in the matter of correspondence 
with you, obliged, like the Anuandale man, to thank God ' for the 
blessings made to pass over my head.' It ought not, perhaps, to 
make any difference whether your letters be addressed to him or me, 
but it does. You never in your life answered a letter of mine (and 
I have written you several), except little business notes from Dum- 
fries, which could not be considered any voluntary expression of 
kind remembrance. Had you even expressed a wish to hear from 
me since I came here, I would nevertheless have writteu, being of a 
disposition to receive thankfully the smallest mercies when greater 
are denied; but, as I said, you have always put me off with a bare 
recognition of my existeuce, which was small 'encouragement.' 
The fact is, we are both of us, I believe, too proud. We go upon 
the notion of ' keeping up our dignity, Mr. Arnot.' You have it by 
inheritance from your mother, who (as I have often told herself) 
with a great profession of humility is swallowed up in this sin ; and 
I have possibly been seduced into it by her example, which I was 
simple enough to consider a safe one to imitate in all respects. 

For my part, however, I am quite willing to enter into a compact 
with you henceforth to resist the devil, in so far as he interferes with 
our mutual good understanding; for few things were more pleas- 
ant for me than to 'tell you sundry news 1 of every kind,' nay, 
rather 'every thought which enters within this shallow mind,' had 
I but the least scrap of assurance of your contentment therewith. 

Now that my mother is actually coming, I am more reconciled to 
my disappointment about Scotland. Next year, God willing. I 
shall see you all again. Meanwhile, I am wonderfully well hefted 
here; the people are extravagantly kind to me, and in most respects 
my situation is out of sight more suitable than it was at Craigen- 
puttock. Of late weeks Carlyle has also been getting on better with 
his writing, which has been uphill work since the burning of the 
first manuscript. I do not think that the second version is on the 
whole inferior to the first; it is a little less vicaciotis, perhaps, but 
better thought and put together. One chapter more brings him to 
the end of his second 'first volume,' and then we shall sing a Te 
Deum and get drunk — for which, by the way, we have unusual 
facilities at present, a friend (Mr. Wilson) having yesterday sent us 
a present of a hamper (some six or seven pounds' worth) of the 
finest old Madeira wine. These Wilsons are about the best people 
we know here; the lady, verging on oldmaideuism.is distinctly the 
cleverest woman I know. 

Then there are Sterlings, who, from the master of the house 
down to the footman, are devoted to me body and soul; it is be- 
tween us as between ' Beauty and the Beast ':— 

Speak your wishes, speak your will, 
Swift obedience meets you still. 

I have only to say ' I should like to see such a thing,' or ' to be at 
such a place,' and next day a carriage is at the door, or a boat is on 
the river to take me if I please to the ends of the earth. Through 
them we have plumped into as pretty an Irish connection as one 
would wish. Among the rest is a Mr. Dunn, au Irish clergyman, 
who would be the delight of your mother's heart — a perfect person- 
ification of the spirit of Christianity. You may take this fact to 
judge him by, that he has refused two bishoprics in the course of his 
life, for conscience sake. We have also some Italian acquaintances. 
An Italian Countess Clementina Degli Antoni is the woman to make 
my husband faithless, if such a one exist — so beautiful, so graceful. 
so melodious, so witty, so everything that is fascinating for the 
heart of man. I am learning from her to speak Italian, and she 
finds, she says, that I have a divine talent (dicino lalenlo). She is 
coming to tea this evening, and another Italian exile, Count de Pe- 
poli, and a Danish young lady, ' Singeress to the King of Den- 
mark,' and Mr. Sterling and my old lover George Bennfe. 'The 
victualling' of so many people is here a trifle, or rather a mere 
affair of the imagination: tea is put down, and tiny biscuits; they 

1 Some old child's verses of this same ' Craw Jean ' (considerably laughed at 
and admired by us in their time). 



sip a few drops of tea, and one or two sugar biscuits ' victuals ' 
a dozen ordinary eaters. So that the thing goes off with small 
damage to even a long-necked purse. The expenditure is not of 
one's money, but of one's wits and spirits; and that is sometimes 
so considerable as to leave one too exhausted for sleepiug after. 

I have been fidgeted with another change of servants. The 
woman recommended to me by Mrs. Austin turned out the best 
servant I had ever had, though a rather unamiable person in tem- 
per, &c. We got on, however, quite harmoniously, and the affairs 
of the house were conducted to my entire satisfaction, when sud- 
denly she was sent for home to attend a sick mother; and, after 
three weeks' absence, during which time I had to find a charwoman 
to supply her place, she sent me word, the other day, that, in the 
state of uncertainly she was kept in she could not expect her place 
to remain longer vacant for her The next day I lighted on an ac- 
tive, tidy-ldoking Irish Roman Catholic in a way so singular that I 
could not help considering her as intended for me by Providence, 
and boding well of our connection. She is not come yet, but will 
be here on Wednesday; and in the meanwhile my charwoman, who 
has her family in the workhouse, does quite tolerably. 

One comfort is, that I have not to puddle about myself here, as I 
used to have with the 'soot drops' at Craigenputtock; the people 
actually do their own work, better or worse. We have no bugs yet, 
to the best of my knowledge; and I do not know of one other 
house among all my acquaintance that so much can be said for. 
For all which, and much more, we have reason to be thankful. 

I must not finish without begging your sympathy in a disaster be- 
fallen me since I commenced this letter — the cat has eaten one of 
my canaries! Not Chico, poor dear; but a young one which I 
hatched ' myself. I have sent the abominable monster out of my 
sight for ever — transferred her to Sirs. Hunt. 

With kindest regards to every one of you, prattlers included, 

Yours affectionately, 

Jake Cablyle. 

• LETTER 8. 

To Miss Hunter, Millfield House, Edmonton. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Sunday, Sept. 22, 1835. 

My dear Friend, — I have been hindered from writing to you all 
this while by the same cause which has hindered me from doing 
almost everything on earth that I ought to have done these last six 
weeks — continued illness, namely, taking one day ihe form of in- 
tolerable headache; another day of equally intolerable colic; and 
many days together animating me with a noble disposition to hang 
or drown myself. Since you left me especially, I have been at the 
right pitch of suffering for entitling me to Mr. Jeffrey's warmest 
sympathy — confined to bed, and not out of danger of 'going to the 
undertaker' (the cockney idea of a future state). 

My projected visit to Herstmonceux did not take effect, my 
mother arriving 2 on the very day we should have set out. It seemed 
when I had received her in a perpendicular posture, and seen her 
fairly established in the house, that I had nothing more to do, for 
I made no more fight with destiny, but quietly took to bed. 

When I was a little recovered, Mrs. Sterling, who would not 
give up .the fancy for taking me out of town, carried me to her 
brother's for a few days — about twenty-five miles from London, 3 a 
perfect Paradise of a place — peopled, as every Paradise ought to 
be, with angels. There I drank warm milk and ate new eggs, and 
bathed in pure air, and rejoiced in cheerful countenances, and was 
as happy as the day was long; which I should have been a monster 
not to have been, when everybody about me seemed to have no 
other object in life but to study my pleasure. I returned in high 
feather — to be sick again the very next day. 

Now I am but just arisen from another horrible attack, which be- 
ing the worst, I fondly flatter myself may be ihe finale to the busi- 
ness for this time. 

I long very much to see you again, and have too much confi- 
dence in your kindness of nature to dread that my inability to 
make your last visit agreeable, or even decently comfortable, will 
deter you from giving me again the pleasure which I always have 
in your company, sick or well. 

Carlyle expects to be at the end of his vexatious task this blessed 
day, 4 and in a week or ten days will probably depart for Scotland. 
There has been much solicitation on my mother's part that I would 
go also, and get myself plumped up into some sort of world like 
rotundity. But man nor woman lives not by bread alone, nor 
warm milk, nor any of these things; now that she is here, the 
most that Dumfriesshire could do for me is already done, and coun- 
try air and country fare would hardly counterbalance country dul- 
ness for me. A little exciting talk is many times, for a person of 
my temperament, more advantageous to bodily health than either 
judicious physicking or nutritious diet and good air. Besides, 
nobody wasever less than I a partaker in the curse of the man who 

1 Assisted in hatching, or, bringing from the shell ! Chico was a very bad 
husband and father. 

' Came Aug. 31. Herstmonceux, where John Sterling still was, had been 
the kind project of his mother for behoof of my pool- suffering Jeannie. 

3 Near Watford (Mr. Cunningham, who tragically died soon after). 

' Just about to finish his re-writing of Vol. I. French Revolution, a task such 
as he never had before or since I 



3 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



was 'made like unto a wheel.' I have no taste whatever for loco- 
motion, by earth, air, or sea (by the way, did you hear that the 
a(5rial ship has been arrested for debt?). 

Will you come a while in Carlyle's absence, and help to keep my 
mother and me from wearying? I think I may safely engage to be 
more entertaining than you found me last time; and one thing you 
are always sure of, while I keep my soul and body together — an 
affectionate welcome. For the rest, namely, for external accommo- 
dations, you, like the rest of us, will be at the mercy of another 
distracted Irishwoman, or such successor as Heaven in its mercy, 
or wrath, may provide, for this one also is on the 'move.' My 
husband, God willing, will bring me a sane creature of the servant 
sort from Scotland with him; for it is positively a great crook in 
my present lot to have so much of my time and thought occupied 
with these mean perplexities. 

Your friend Mr. Craik was here lately; he seems a good-hearted 
pleasant man. 

Carlyle unites with me in kind love. My mother also begs her 

remembrances. Forgive scrawling, and many things besides — 

poverty in the article of paper among others. Remember me to 

Mr. John and your sister when you write, and believe me always 

Your affectionate and amiable 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 9. 

'Sereetha': in the interval of servants (rebellious Irishwoman 
packed off, and Anne Cook not yet come with me), I remember this 
poor little Chelsea specimen, picked out as a stop-gap from some of 
the neighbouring huts here — a very feeble though willing little girl, 
introduced by the too romantic-looking name 'Seraether' — which, 
on questioning her little self, I discovered to be Sarah Heather 
(Bar' 'Eather)! much to our amusement for the moment! ' Pees- 
weep'is peewit, lapwing; with which swift but ineffectual bird 
Sereetha seemed to have similarity. 

'The kindness of these people!' 'I'm sure the,' &c, (inter- 
jectional in this fashion) was a phrase of her mother's. 

' Beats the world.' Annandale form of speech which she had 
heard without forgetting from my sister Mary. 

'Gamier,' big German refugee, dusty, smoky, scarred with duel- 
cuts; had picked up considerable knowledge in his wanderings, 
was of intelligent, valiant, manful character; wildly independent, 
with tendency to go mad or half-mad — as he did by-aud-by. II 
Conte ' Pepoii ' was from Bologna, exile and dilettante, a very 
pretty man; married, some years hence, Elizabeth Fergus of Kirk- 
caldy (elderly, moneyed, and fallen in love with the romantic in 
distress); and now, as widower, lives in Bologna again. — T. C. 

To T. Carlyle, Esq., ScoUbrig. 1 

Chelsea: Oct. 12, 1835. 

Dearest,— A newspaper is very pleasant when one is expecting 
nothing at all; but when it comes in place of a letter it is a positive 
insult to one's feelings. Accordingly your first newspaper was 
received by me in choicest mood; and the second would have been 
pitched in the fire, had there been one at hand, when, after having 
tumbled myself from the top story at the risk of my neck,- 1 found 
myself deluded with ' wun penny'm.' However, I flatter myself 
you would experience something of a similar disappointment on 
receiving mine; and so we are quits, and I need not scold you. I 
have not been a day in bed since you went — have indeed been al- 
most free of headache, and all otheraches; and everybody says Mrs. 
Carlyle begins to look better — and what everybody says must be 
true. With this improved health everything becomes tolerable, 
even to the peesweep Sereetha (for we are still without other help). 
Now that I do not see you driven desperate with the chaos, I can 
take a quiet, view of it, and even reduce it to some degree of order. 
Mother and I have fallen naturally into a fair division of labour, 
and we keep a very tidy house. Sereetha has attained the un- 
hoped for perfection of getting up at half after six of her own 
accord, lighting the parlour-fire, and actually placing the breakfast 
things (nil desperandum me duce.'). I get up at halt' after seven, 
and prepare the coffee and bacon-ham (which is the life of me, 
making me always hungrier the more I eat of it). Mother, in the 
interim, makes her bed, and sorts her room. After breakfast, 
moth. ■;• desci nils to the inferno, where she jingles and scours, and 
from time to time scolds Sereetha till all is right and tight there. I, 
above stairs, sweep the parlour, blacken the grate— make the room 
look cleaner than it has been since the days of Grace Macdonald; 2 
then mount aloft to make my own bed (for I was resolved to enjoy 
the privilege of having a bed of my own); then clean myself (as the 
servants say), and sit down to the Italian lesson. A bit of meat 
roasted at the oven suffices two days cold, and does not plague us 
with cookery. Sereetha can fetch up tea-things, and the porridge is 
easily made on the parlour-fire; the kitchen one being allowed to 
go out (for economy), when the Peesweep) retires to bed at eight 
o'clock. 

That we are not neglected by the public, you may infer from the 

1 Carlyle had gone to Annandale at the beginning of October.— J. A. F. 
a The Edinburgh servant we brought with us to Craigenputtock; the skil- 
fullest we ever had anywhere. 



fact that, this very night, Peesweep fetched up four tea-cups on the 
tray; and when 1 asked the meaning of the two additional, she in- 
quired, with surprise, 'Were there to be no gentlemen? ' In fact, 
' the kindness of these people ' ' beats the world.' I had some private 
misgiving that your men would not mind me when you were not 
here, and I should have been mortified in that case, though I could 
not have blamed them. But it is quite the reverse. Little Grant ' 
has been twice to know if he could ' do anything for me.' Garnier 
has been twice! The first time by engagement to you; the second 
time to meet Pepoii, whom he knew in Paris, and wished to re-know, 
and who proved perfido on the occasion. Pepoii has been twice, 
and is gliding into a flirtation with — mia madre! who presented 
him, in a manner molto graziosa, with her tartan scarf. From John 
Miil I have been privileged with two notes, and one visit. He evi- 
dently tried to yawn as little as possible, and stayed till the usual 
hour, lest, I suppose, he should seem to have missed your conversa- 
tion. John Sterling and the Stimabile, s of course. The latter was 
at tea last night to meet Mr. Gibson 2 — one of my fatal attempts at 
producing a reunion, for they coincided in nothing but years. The 
Stimabile was at Brighton for several days, and goes again next 
week, so that he has not been too deadly frequent. 
Our visiting has been confined to one dinner and two teas at the 

Sterlings', and a tea at Hunt's! You must know, 

came the day after you went„\iud stayed two days. As she desired 
above all things to see Hunt, I wrote him a note, asking if I might 
bring her up to call. He replied he was just setting off to town, 
but would look in at eight o'clock. I supposed this, as usual, a 
mere off -put; but he actually came — found Pepoii as well as Miss 

, was amazingly lively, and very lasting, for he stayed till 

near twelve. Between ourselves, it gave me a poorish opiuion of 

him, to see how uplifted to the third heaven he seemed by 's 

compliments and sympathising talk. He asked us all, with enthu- 
siasm, to tea the following Monday. came on purpose, and 



slept here. He sang, talked like a pen-gun, 4 ever to, 



who 



drank it all in like nectar, while my mother looked cross enough, 
and I had to listen to the whispered confidences of Mrs. Hunt. But 
for me, who was declared to be grown 'quite prim and elderly, ' I 
believe they would have communicated their mutual experiences in 

a retired window-seat till morning. ' God bless you, Miss ,' 

was repeated by Hunt three several times in tones of ever-increasing 
pathos and tenderness, as he handed her downstairs behind me. 

, for once in her life, seemed past speech. At the bottom of 

the stairs a demur took place. I saw nothing; but I heard, with 
my wonted glegness — what think you? — a couple of handsome 
smacks! and then an almost inaudibly soft 'God bless you, Miss 
t ' 

Now just remember what sort of looking woman is ; 

and figure their transaction! If he had kissed me, it would have 

been intelligible, but , of all people! By the way, 

Mr. Craik 6 is immensely delighted with you, and grateful to Susan 
for having brought you together. Mrs. Cole 6 came the other daj f , 
and sat an hour waiting for me while I was out, and finally had to 
go, leaving an obliging note offering me every assistance in pro- 
curing a servant. 

Mrs. John Sterling takes to me wonderfully ; but John, I perceive, 
will spoil all with his innocence. He told her the other day, when 
she was declaring her wish that he would write on theology rather 
than make verses, that she ' might fight out that matter with Mrs. 
Carlyle, who, he knew, was always on the side of the poetical.' 
He (Sterling) has written a positively splendid poem of half-au- 
hour's length — an allegorical shadowing of the union of the ideal 
and actual. It is far the best thing he ever did — far beyond any- 
thing I could have supposed him capable of. He said, when he 
was writing it, he thought sometimes, ' Carlyle will be pleased with 
that.' 

To descend to the practical, or, I should rather say ascend, for I 
have filled my whole paper with mere gossip. I think you seem, 
so far as human calculations avail, to have made a good hit as to 
the servant; character is not worth a straw; but you say she looks 
intelligent and good-humoured, is young and willing. 1 Fetch her, 
then, in God's name, and I will make the best I can of her. After 
all, we fret ourselves too much about little things; much that might 
be laughed off, if one were well and cheerful as one ought to be, 
becomes a grave affliction from being too gravely looked at. Re- 
member also meal, and oh, for goodness sake, procure a dozen of 
bacon-hams! There is no bottom to my appetite for them. Sell 
poor Harry, by all means, or shoot him. We are too poor to in- 
dulge our fine feelings with keeping such large pets (especially at 

1 Official in the India House, a friend and admirer of John Mill's. 

2 A title we had for John's father. Signora degti Antoni, the Italian in- 
structress in these months, setting her pupil an" epistolary pattern, had 
thrown off one day a billet as if addressed to Edward Sterling, which began 
with Stimabile Signor. 

3 Was a massive, easy, friendly, dull person, physically one of the best 
washed I ever saw; American merchant, 'who had made, and again lost, 
three fortunes'; originally a Nithsdale pedlar boy, 'Black WuII,' by title; 
' Mlver-headed Packman,' he was often called here. 

4 Scotice, gun made of quill-barrel for shooting peas (and ' cracking,' which 
also means pleasantly conversing). 

6 Useful Knowledge Craik, poor fellow! 

6 The now thriee-'notable 'Crystal Palace,' 'Brompton Boilers,' &c, &c, 
Henry Cole's wife. 
' Anne Cook (got for me by sister Mary, at Annan). 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 







other people's expense). What a pity no frank is to be got! I 
have told you nothing yet. No word ever came from Basil Mon- 
tague. I have translated four songs into Italian — written a long 
excessively spirituosa letter to ' mia adorabile Clementina,' 1 and 
many graziose cartucie besides. In truth, I have a divino ingegno ! 

You x ' ill come back strong and cheerful, will you not? I wish you 
were come, anyhow. Don't take much castor; eat plenty of chicken 
broth rather. Dispense my love largely. Mother returns your 
kiss with interest. We go on tolerably enough; but she has vowed 
to hate all my people except Pepoli. So that there is ever a ' dark 
brown shadd ' in all my little reunions. She has given me a glori- 
ous black-velvet gown, realising my beau ideal of Putz! 

Did you take away my folding penknife? We are knifeless here. 
We were to have gone to Richmond to-day with the Silverheaded; 
but, to my great relief, it turned out that the steamboat is not run- 
ning. 

God keep you, my own dear husband, and bring you safe back 
to me. The house looks very empty without you, and my mind 
feels empty too. 

Your Jane. 

LETTER 10. ' 

Beautiful Poverty, when so triumphed over, and victoriously 
bound under foot. Oh, my heroine, my too unacknowledged 
heroine! I was in the throes of the 'French Revolution' at this 
time, heavy-laden in many ways and gloomy of mind. — T. C. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., Scotsbiig. 

Chelsea: Oct. 26, 1835. 

Caro e rispettabile il mio Marito ! — Mi pare, ehe vol siete assai irre- 
cordevole delta vostra poeera piccolo, ! . Questi itmtri lunghi silenzi, 
questa la vostra lu nga ossenza mi divengono noiosa. Ritornate, mio 
Marito, ritornate, in nome di Dio, alia vostra casa/ In vano stima- 
bili Signori vengono in gran numero mi far' adorazione ! In vano 
mangio came di porco, e ricomineio esser una bella Gooda ! In vano 
mi sforzo m' oceupare, mi divertire, mi fare conlenta ! Nell' asse/tza 
del mio Marito rimango sempre inquieta, sempre perduta ! Se perb 
voi trovatevi meglio net' paese, se la preziosa vostra sanitd diviene piii 
forte, la vostra anima piii chiara piii tranquilla, non arete permero 
di me. Bisogna ch' io sotlometta la mia voglia alia vostra prosperity ; 
efarb il piii meglio possibile d' esser paziente. 

Ecco come sono stala studiosa, mio Marito! Questa bellissima 
Italiana e scritta senza dizionario. senza studio, con pinna corrente. 
II Conte di Pepoli si maraviglia al divino mio talento; lascia i suoi 
alii complimenti ; e dice solamenle m sotto voce, 'Ah graziosa! All, 
bella bella ! Ah, all!' 

Dear my husband, — You have probably enough of this, as well 
as I; so now in English I repeat that I expect with impatience the 
letter which is to fix your return. So long, I have reason to be 
thankful that I have been borne through with an honourable 
through-bearing. 5 Except for two days before your last letter 
arrived, I flatter myself I have been conducting myself with a quite 
exemplary patience and good nature towards all men, women, and 
inanimate tilings. Ecco la bella proca di ehe, Sereetha sta sempre qui, 
e la mia Madre ed io non siamo ancor imbrogliate. 

What a world of beautiful effort you have had to expend on this 
matter of the servant! Heaven grant it may be blessed to us! I 
do not know well why; but I like the abstract idea of this woman 3 
now much better than the other. It seemed to me rather an objec- 
tion to the other that she had a brother a baker. The bakers, you 
know, trade in servants here, and he would probably have soon been 
recommending her into more exalted place. Moreover, it was 
thought displeasing to me that she bad been educated in the school 
of country gigmanism. Macturkdom-ism, and Gillenbie-rig-ism 4 is 
just as hateful or more hateful to me than Devonshire-house-ism. 
The ' wjing ' woman, of tarnished virtue, 6 will suit, I think, much 
better. In fact, it would be difficult for me to say that an Annan- 
dale woman's virtue is the worse for a misfortune. I am certain 
that, in their circumstances, with their views and examples, I should 
have had one too, if not more! And now that the best is done 
which could be done, let us quiet ourselves, and look with equan- 
imity towards the issue. If she does not do better than those that 
have gone before, if no grown servant any longer exists on this 
earth, why, we can certainly manage with an uugrown one. 
Sereetha has hardly been a fair trial of the little-girl plan ; but she has 
been a trial, and I am confident of being able to get on quite peace- 
ably with one of such little girls as, I doubt not, are to be found in 
plenty; with only a giving up of a few hours of my own time, 
which might easily be worse spent, and the sacrifice of the beauty 
and ladylikenessof my bauds. For economy, little, I find, is to be 
gained by the substitution of a child for a woman. The washing 
runs away with all the difference in wages, and their consumption 
of victual is much the same. But then the things are washed 
beautifully; and I clean beautifully when you do not dishearten me 
witli liypercriticism. So never fear, dearest! Never fear about 

1 Degli Antoni. 

3 Helpless phrase of a certain conceited extempore preacher. 
3 Anne Cook. * Annandale 'genteel ' places or persons. 

6 Appears to have had what they call a 'misfortune 1 there. The using, 
some misteature of pronunciation, which I have now forgotten. 



that, or anything else under heaven. Try all that ever you can to be 
patient and good-natured with your povera piccolo Gooda, 1 and then 
she loves you, and is ready to do anything on earth that you wish; 
to fly over the moon, if you bade her. But when the signor delta 
casa has neither kind look nor word for me, What can I do but 
grow desperate, fret myself to fiddlestrings, and be a torment to 
society in every direction? - 

Poiche i giorni divengono si freddi, la rispettabile mia Signora 
Modr,- diviene infelice assai, e di molto cattuo umor, . Ma io sono a 
presente d'un umore divino! et tutto va mediocremenle bene! Mr. 
Gibson comes to-morrow to take me — to prison. I believe the 
King's Bench, &c. Quello Signor e, per mia Madre. il solo angelo 
di boutd qu'i, nella nobile cittd. Tutti i miei signori e signore (a menu 
il leggiddro Conte 3 ) sono per lei fastidiose persone. Other sights we 
have seen none, except the British Museum and the King and 
Queen. Their majesties very opportunely came to visit the Col- 
lege, 4 and the fact being made known to me by the beggar-woman 
from New Street (with the cobweb shawl), I hurried off my mother 
to the place, where, without being kept waiting above five minutes, 
we saw them walk past our very noses. 

My mother's enthusiasm of loyalty on the occasion was a sight 
for sore eyesl 'Poor Queen, after all!' 5 She looked so frost- 
bitten and anxious! curtsied, with such a cowering hurriedness, to 
the veriest rabble that ever was seen. I was wae to look at her, 
wae to think of her, when I heard that the very same night they 
hissed her at one of the theatres! Poor thing! She would have 
done rather well, I do believe, looking after the burning of her cin- 
ders! 6 But a Queen of England in these days! The British 
Museum charmed my mother, and I myself was affected beyond 
measure by the Elgin marbles. We went after to lunch with the 
Donaldsons. 1 'The kindness of these people! ' 8 

On that day I came, saw, and bought — a sofa! It is my own 
purchase, but you shall share the possession. Indeed, so soon as 
you set eyes on it and behold its vastness, its simple greatness, you 
will perceive that the thought of you was actively at work in my 
choice. It was neither dear nor cheap, 9 but a bargain neverthe- 
less, being second-hand; and so good a second-hand one is not, I 
should think, often to be met. Oh, it is so soft! so easy! and one 
of us, or both, may sleep in it, should occasion require — I mean for 
all night. It. will sell again at any time; it is so sufficient an article. 
With my velvet gown. I shall need no great outlay for Putz this 
winter, so I thought I might fairly indulge ourselves in a sofa at 
last. 

The Stimabile conducts himself in a quite exemplary manner 
since you went, coming but once, or at most twice, in the week. 
I fear, however, we must not give him too much credit for his self- 
denial; but rather impute it, in part, to his impossibility of getting 
at ease with my mother, and also to some rather violent political 
arguments which he has had of late with myself. All the men 
take fright sooner or later at my violence — tant mieux! John I 
seldom see; he is so occupied in waiting upon his wife. He came 
one night last week with his mother to meet the Cunninghams. 
Mrs. S. wished to know Allan. It went off wonderfully well, con- 
sidering Sereetha was our sole waiter! 

There is nothing in the note. 10 Miss Elliot's address was written 
on it in pencil, which I interpreted to express an expectation that 
you would call for her. 1 wrote her, therefore, a courteous little 
note, stating that you were in Scotland, &c, &c. ; that I, &c, &c, 
would be glad to see her here, &c. , etc. 

Mother's love, of course. Can you bring her from Duncan, 
Dumfries, one gross of pills? He has her prescription. My head 
has troubled me a little of late days, but I continue generally much 
better. Special love to your mother, and a kiss to my Jane's pie- 
cola! " Mill told me it was next to impossible for him to realise a 
frank, so I need not waste time sending him this. I have hardly 
room to send love to them all; and to you, dear, kisses senza mi- 
sura! Mrs. Cole came for a day; her husband in the evening; 
talkative, niceish people. 

My dressing-gown 'likes me very much.' A thousand thanks! 



1 Goody, with diminutives ' Qoodykin,' &c, the common name she had from 
me. 

2 A poor, but lively and healthy, half idiot and street beggar, in Birniing 
ham, whom I had grown used to, the dirtiest and raggedest of human beings 
(face never washed, beard a fortnight old, knee-breeches slit at the sides, and 
become knee-Aprons, napping to and fro over bare, dirty legs), said, one day, 
under my window, while somebody was vainly attempting to chafe him, 
• Damn thee, I's an ornament to society in every direction '— T. C. 

s pepoli. 4 Chelsea Hospital, 

s • Poor fellow, after all ! ' a phrase of brother John's. 

6 William IV., soon after his accession, determined one day to see his cellar- 
regions at Windsor, came upon a vast, apartment filled merely with waste 
masses of cinders: 'What are these?' asked his Majesty astonished. Atten- 
dant officials obsequiously explained. ' It seems to me those would burn ! ' 
said his Majesty, kicking the cinders with his boot; and walked on.— News- 
paper of the time. 

7 A Haddington family. Dr. Donaldson (of Cambridge celebrity, &c. ) eldest 
son then. e Phrase of Irving's. 

■' Melancholy shopkeeper in Lamb's Conduit Street, (in 1831, whom she ever 
afterwards dealt with, for what he sold) had stated, in answer to a puppy- 
kind of customer, the how-much of something. Puppy replied: 'D'youcall 
that cheap? ' Whereupon answer, in a tone of mournful indifference: ' I call 
it neither cheap nor dear; but just the price of the article.' 

10 Note inclosed, from Miss Elliot, an acquaintance of Lady Clare's and my 
brother's. 

11 The now 'Annie Aitken,,' I suppose. 



10 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE' WELSH CARLYLE. 



And the haras! Oh. I am glad of them! This one is near done. 
Think you one could have a little keg of salt herrings sent at the 
same time? 

[No signature. These last little paragraphs are crowded in upon 
every margin and vacant space, so that there is not a hit of blank 
more.— T. C] 

LETTER 11. 

Mrs. Welsh came to us in the last days in August, by an Edin- 
burgh steamer. I was waiting at the St. Katherine Dock, in a 
bright afternoon; pleasant meeting, pleasant voyage up the river in 
our wherry; and such a welcome here at home as may be fancied. 
About the end of next month I had finished my burnt MS.; and 
seem then to have run for Scolsbrig. and been there perhaps three 
weeks (scarcely a detail of it now clear to me) in October following. 
I was sickly of body and mind, felt heavy laden, and without any 
hope but the ' desperate ' kind, which I always did hold fast. Our 
Irish Catholic housemaid proved a mutinous Irish savage (had a 
fixed persuasion. I could notice, that our poor house and we had 
been made for her, and had gone awry in the process). One even 
ing, while all seated for supper, Eliza Miles and we too, the indig- 
nant savage, jingling down her plates as if she had been playing 
quoits, was instantaneously dismissed by me ('To your room at 
once; wages tomorrow morning; disappear!'), so that the bring- 
ing of a Scotch servant was one of my express errands. 'Anne 
Cook,' accordingly, and the journey with her by steamer from An- 
nan, by 'Umpire coach' from Liverpool, some forty or fifty hours, 
all in a piece, is dismally memorable! Breakfast at Newport Pag- 
nel) (I had given Anne the inside place, night being cold and wet); 
awkward, hungry Anne would hardly even eat, till hidden and 
directed by me. Landing in Holborn, half dead, bright Sunday 
afternoon, amidst a crowd of porters, cabmen, hungry officials, 
some seven or ten of them, ravenous for sixpences and shillings, 
till at length I shut the cab-door. 'To no person will I pay any 
thing more at this time! ' and drove off, amid a general laugh, not 
ill-humoured, from the recognising miscellany. Drive home, sur- 
rounded by luggage, and with Anne for company, seemed endless. 
I landed at this door in a state of misery, more like mad than sane; 
but my darling was in the lobby; saw at a glance how it was, and 
almost without speaking, brought me to my room, and with me a 
big glass, almost a goblet, of the best sherry: 'Drink that, dear, at 
a draught!' Never in my life had I such a medicine! Shaved, 
washed, got into clean clothes, I stepped down quite new-made, 
and thanking Heaven for such a doctor. 

Mrs Welsh went away a few weeks after to Liverpool, to her 
brother John's there — favourite and now only brother — a brave and 
generous man, much liked by all of us. 

John Sterling had turned up in the early part of this year, John 
Sterling, and with him all the Sterlings, which was an immense 
acquisition to us for the ten years that followed, as is abundantly 
betokened in the letter that now follows. — T. C. 

To Mrs. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea: Dec. 33, 1835. 
My dear Mother, — You are to look upon it as the most positive 
proof of my regard that I write to you in my present circumstances; 
that is to say, with the blood all frozen in my brains, and my brains 
turned to a solid mass of ice ; for such has, for several days, been 
the too cruel lot of your poor little daughter-in-law at Lunnon; the 
general lot indeed of all Lunnon, so far as I can observe. When 
the frost comes here, 'it comes,' as the woman said witli the four 
eggs '; and it seems to be somehow more difficult to guard against 
it here than elsewhere; for all the world immediately takes to 
coughing and blowing its nose with a fury quite appalling. The 
noise thus created destroys the suffering remnant s of senses spared 
by the cold, and makes the writing of a letter, or any other employ- 
ment in which thought is concerned, seem almost a tempting of 
Providence. Nevertheless, I am here to tell you that we are still 
in the land of the living, and thinking of you all, from yourself, 
the head of the nation, down to that very least and fattest child, 
who, I hope, will continue to grow fatter and fatter till I come to 
see it with my own eyes. I count this fatness a good omen for the 
whole family; it betokens good-nature, which is a quality too rare 
among us. Those ' long, sprawling, ill-put-together ' 3 children give 
early promise of being 'gey ill to deal wi'.' 4 

That one of them who is fallen to my share conducts himself 
pretty peaceably at present; writing only in the forenoons. He 
has finished a chapter much to my satisfaction; and the poor book 
begins to hold up its head again. Our situation is farther improved 
by the introduction of Anne Cook into the establishment, instead 
of the distracted Roman Catholics and distracted Protestants who 
preceded her. She seem- an assiduous, kindly, honest, and thrifty 
creature: and will learn to do all I want with her quite easily. 
For the rest, she amuses me every hour of the day with her perfect 

1 ' When I come. I come, 1 laying down tier gift of four eggs 

2 ' Suffering Remnant,' so the Cameronians called themselves in Claver- 
house's time. 

3 'A lank, sprawling, ill-put-together thing.' Such had been my mother's 
definition to her < if me as a nurseling. 

4 ' Thou's gey ' (pretty, pronounced gyei) ' ill to deal wi' T — mother's allocu- 
tion to me once, in some unreasonable moment of mine. 



incomprehension of everything like ceremony. I was helping her 
to wring a sheet one day, while she had the cut finger, and she 
told me flatly it was 'clean aboon my fit' (ability). 'I shall get at 
it by practice.' said I; 'far weaker people than I have wrung 
sheets." 'May be sae,' returned she very coolly; 'but I ken-na 
where ye'll find ony weaker, for a weaklier-like cretur I never saw 
in a' my life.' Another time, when Carlyle had been off his sleep 
for a night or two, she came to me at bedtime to ask, 'If Mr. Car- 
lyle bees ony uneasy through the nicht, and's ga'an staivercai 1 abool 
the boose, will ye bid him gae us a cry a at five in the morning? ' 

We may infer, however, that she is getting more civilisation, 
from the entire change in her ideas respecting the handsome Italian 
Count 3 ; for, instead of calling him ' a fley (flight Vsome body ' any 
longer, she is of opinion that he is 'a real tine man, and naue that 
comes can ever be named in ae day with him.' Nay, I notice that 
she puts on a certain net cap with a most peculiar knot of ribbons 
every' time she knows of his coming. The reward of which act is 
an 'I weesh you good day' when she lets him out. So much for 
poor Anne, who, 1 hope, will long continue to flourish in the land. 

I am much belter off this winter for society than I was last. 
Mrs. Sterling makes the greatest possible change for me. She is 
so good, so sincerely and unvaryingly kind, that I feel to her as to 
a third mother. Whenever I have blue devils, I need but put on 
my bonnet and run off to her, and the smile in her eyes restores me 
to instant good humour. Her husband would go through fire and 
water for me; and if there were a third worse element, would go 
through that also. The son is devoted to Carlyle, and makes him a 
real friend, which, among all his various intimate acquaintances and 
well-wishers, he cannot be said ever to have had before- this family, 
then, is a great, blessing to us. And so has been my study of 
Italian, which has helped me through many dullish hours. 1 never 
feel anything like youth about me except when I am learning some- 
thing; and when 1 am turning over the leaves of my Italian dic- 
tionary, I could fancy myself thirteen: whether there be any good 
in fancying oneself thirteen after one is turned of thirty, I leave 
yoiy charity to determine. 

We sit in hourly, nay, in momentary, expectation of the meal, 
&c. , which has not yet arrived, but will soon, I am sure; for I 
dreamt two nights since that I saw them fetching it out of the wag- 
gon, meanwhile, we sup on arrowroot and milk; the little bag 
being done. 

Dear mother, excuse all this Wash 4 in consideration that I really 
have a very bad cold, which I am resolved, however, to be rid of 
on Christmas Day (the day after to-morrow) on which I am engaged 
to dine at the Sterlings'. Ever since I killed the goose at Craigen- 
puttock (with the determination to make a Christmas pie in spite of 
nature and fate), and immediately thereupon took a sore throat, my 
Christmas days have found me ill, or in some way unlucky. Last 
year I was lying horizontal with my burnt foot; this year, then, I 
am very desirous to break the spell, and Mrs. Sterling makes a 
ploy for the purpose. 

God keep you all, and make your new year no worse, and, if 
may be, better, than all that have preceded it. 

Your affectionate 

Jane Carlyus. 

[That 'sore foot of Christmas last,' which has never otherwise 
been forgotten by me, now dates itself. She was in the kitchen 
one evening, upon some experiment or other; pouring or being 
poured to from a boiling kettle, got a splash on her poor little foot, 
instantly ran with it to the pump (following some recent precept in 
the newspapers), and then had it pumped upon till quite cold, 
which, indeed, 'cured' it for about four-and-twenty hours; and 
then it began anew, worse than ever. It seems to me to have lasted 
for weeks. Never did I see such patience under total lameness and 
imprisonment. Hurt was on the instep. No doctor's advice had 
been dreamt of; 'a little wound, don't hurt it. keep it clean; what 
more ?' — and it would not heal. For weeks I carried her upstairs 
nightly to her bed — ever cheerful, hopeful one. At length, one 
Willis, a medical acquaintance, called; found that it needed only a 
bandage — bandaged it there and then; and in two days more it was 
as good as well, and never heard of again. Oh, my poor little 
woman! — become 'poor' for me!] — T. C. 

LETTER 12. 

Helen Welsh was the daughter of John Welsh, of Liverpool, 
Mrs. Carlyle's uncle on her mother's side. See an account of him 
in the 'Reminiscences,' vol. 2, p. 142. — J. A. F. 

To Miss Helen Welsh, Liverpool. 

Chelsea: April 1, 1836. 
My dear Cousinkia.— I am charmed to notice in you the rapid 
growth of a virtue, which for the most part only develops itself in 
mature age. after many and hard experiences; hut which is. never- 
theless, highly necessary at all ages, in this world of sin and misery. 
I mean the virtue of toleration. Rarely is one edified by the spec- 
tacle of so young a lady, meekly acknowledging her own transgres- 
sions and shortcomings, when, with perfect justice, she might have 



1 Stumbling. 



1 Awaken us. 



' Count Pepoli. 



* Watery stuff. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



11 



adopted rather the tone of accusation. Continue, my sweet little 
cousin, to cultivate this engaging disposition; this beautiful sensi- 
bility to your own imperfections, and beautiful insensibility to the 
imperfections of your neighbour, and you will become (if indeed 
you are not such already) an ornament to your sex, and a credit to 
'the name of Welsh' (which my mother talks about so proudly; I 
could never tell precisely why). 

In truth you will have added a new lustre of virtue to that name, 
which I never hoped to see it brightened with; for, as my Penfillau 
grandfather's physiological observations on his stock had led him 
to the conclusion that it was capable of producing rascals and vag- 
abonds enough, but not one solitary instance of a blockhead, so 
mine had hitherto tended to certify me that ' the name of Welsh ' 
had something in it wholly and everlastingly antipathetical to patience 
and toleration, and was no more capable of coalescing with it than 
fire with water. 

The box came safe, as did also the herrings and the brandy; 
shame to me that I should be now for the first time acknowledging 
them all in the lump! But I trust that my mother reported my 
thanks, as she was charged to do ; and that however much you may 
all have blamed my laziness, you .have not suspected me of the 
atrocious sin of ingratitude, 'alike hateful to gods and men:' at 
least it used to be so; but now that it is so common in the world, 
people are getting into the way of regarding it, I suppose, as they 
do other fashionable vices, 'with one eye shut and the other not 
open ' (as an Irish author said to me the other day in describing his 
manner of reading a certain journal). Rogers, the poet, who pro- 
fessed to be a man of extensive beneficence, and to have befriended 
necessitous persons without number in the course of his long life, 
declares that he never met with gratitude but in three instances. I 
have a mind to ask him to do something for me, just that he may 
have the pleasure of swelling his beggarly list of grateful people to 
four. 'For the name of Welsh,' I flatter myself, cherishes the old 
Athenian notions about gratitude. 

We are labouring under a visitation of rain here, which seems to 
portend the destruction of the world by deluge. 

One feels soaked to the very heart; no warmth or pith remaining 
in one. As oue fire is understood to drive out another, I thought 
one water might drive out another also; and so this morning I took 
a shower-bath, and have shivered ever siuce, ' Too much water 
hadst thou, poor Ophelia!' 

Helen! what a fearful recollection I have at this instant of 
your shower-bathing at Moffat! It was indeed the sublime of 
shower-battling, the human mind stands astonished before it, as 
before the Infinite. In fact, you have ever since figured in my 
imagination as a sort of Undine. 

Barring the weather, everything goes on here in the usual way: 
people eat eight o'clock dinners together; talk politics, philosophy, 
folly together; attend .what they call their business at ' the House,' 
or where else it may happen to be; and fill up the intervals with 
vapours, and something that goes by the name of ' checked perspira- 
tion;' but I can give you no idea of what that precisely means; it 
seems to comprehend every malady that flesh is heir to; and for my 
part, as the cockney said to Allan Cunningham of the lottery, 'I 
am deadly sure there is a do at the bottom on it! ' 

We expect John Carlyle in some ten days; for this time his lady 
will surely, for decency's sake, stick to her purpose, lady of quality 
though she be ! I am afraid he is not a man for grappling in a 
cunning manner with ' checked perspiration;' and accordingly, that 
there is small hope of his getting into profitable employment here 
as a doctor. We do not know even. yet if he will try; but time will 
settle that and much else that waits to be settled. In the mean- 
while there were no sense in worrying over schemes for a future, 
which we may not live to see. ' Sufficient for the day is the evil 
thereof — at present more than sufficient. 

Two of our dearest friends are dangerously ill; John Mill, whom 
you have often heard me speak of, and John Sterling, whose novel, 
'Arthur Coningsby,' I think I lent you at Templand. 

My husband is anything but well, nor likely to be better till he 
have finished his ' Freuch Revolution,' of which there is still a 
volume to write: he works beyond his strength. 

1 myself have been abominably all winter," though not writing, so 
far as I know, for the press. And more evil still is lying even now 
while I write, at the bottom of my pocket, in shape of a letter from 
Annan, requiring me to send off, without delay, the servaut whom 
Carlyle so bothered himself to fetch me: her mother being at the 
point of death, and 'will not,' says the letter-writer, 'leave the 
charge of the house to any other than her dear Anne '! What is to 
be the consequence if Anne do not obey this hurried summons, the 
letter-writer does not state. One is left to conjecture that the poor 
woman will either take the house along with her, or stay where she 
is till she can get it settled to her mind; in which last case it is 
better for all parties that my maid should stay where she is. I am 
excessively perplexed. Happy cousinkin, that hast, as yet, no 
household imbroglios to fetter thy glad movement through life. 
My husband sends affectionate regards, to be distributed along with 
mine at your discretion. You may also add a few kisses on my 
account. 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane Carlyle. 



[Soon after the date of the last letter Mrs. Carlyle became ex- 
tremely ill. June brought hot weather, and she grew worse and 
worse. Carlyle was working at the 'French Revolution.' His 
' nervous system ' was ' in a flame.' At such times he could think 
of nothing but the matter which he had in hand, and a sick wife 
was a bad companion for him. She felt at last that unless ' she 
could get out of Loudon she would surely die,' and she escaped to 
Scotland to her mother. She went by Liverpool, and thence for 
economy she intended to go on by steamer to Annan. At sea she 
suffered more than most people. Her Liverpool uncle paid her fare 
in the mail to Dumfries, gave her a warm handsome shawl as a 
birthday present (July 14), and sent her forward under better aus- 
pices. Mrs. AVelsh was waiting to receive her at the Dumfries 
Coach Office — ' such an embracing and such a crying,' she said, ' the 
very " boots" was affected with it and spoke in a plaintive voice all 
the morning after." At Templand she met the warmest welcome. 
Mrs. Welsh gave her (for her birthday also) a purse of her own 
working, filled with sovereigns. She bad all the care and nursing 
which affection could bestow, but sleeplessness, cough, and head- 
ache refused to leave hold of her. Her health scarcely mended, 
and after two months' trial 'desperate of everything here below,' 
she returned to Cheyne Row, in August. She came back, as she 
described herself, ' a sadder and a wiser woman,' to find recovered 
health at home. 'I ought not to regret my flight into Scotland,' 
she wrote to Miss Hunter, ' since it has made me take with new rel- 
ish to London. It is a strange praise to bestow on the Metropolis 
of the world, but I find it so delightfully still here! not so much 
Us a cock crowing to startle nervous subjects out of their sleep; 
and during the day no inevitable Mrs. this or Miss that, brimful of 
all the gossip for twenty miles around, interrupting vour serious 
pursuits (whatever they may be) with calls of a duration happily 
unknown in cities. The feeling of calm, of safety, of liberty which 
came over me on re-entering iny own house was really the most 
blessed I had felt for a great while. Soon, through the medium of 
this feeling, the house itself and everything about it, even my An- 
nandale maid, presented a sort of earnest classic appearance to my 
first regards, which is hardly yet worn off." 

It was the dead season; but there were a few persons still in 
London, who came occasionally to Cheyne Row, one of them a re- 
markable man of a remarkable family, who, for several years was 
very intimate there, and was then in exile for conspiracy against 
Louis Philippe. Mrs. Carlyle thus describes him: — 

' AVe have another foreigner who beats all the rest to sticks, a 
French Republican of the right thorough-going sort, an "accuse 
d'Avril," who has had the glory of meriting to be imprisoned and 
nearly losing his head; a man with that sort of dark half-savage 
beauty with which one paints a fallen angel, who fears neither 
heaven nor earth, for aught one can see, who fights and writes 
witli the same passionate intrepidity, who is ready to dare or suffer, 
to live or to die without disturbing himself much about the matter; 
who defies all men and honours, all women, and whose name is 
Cavaignac ' (Godefroi, brother of the future President. — J. A. F.] 

LETTER 13. 

To Mrs. Welsh, Maryland Street, Liverpool. 

Chelsea: Sept. 5, 1836. 

My dear Aunt, — Now that I am fairly settled at home again, and 
can look back over my late travels with the coolness of a specta- 
tor, it seems to me that I must have tired out all men, women, and 
children that have had to do with me by the road. The proverb 
says ' there is much ado when cadgers ride.' I do not know pre- 
cisely what ' cadger ' means, but I imagine it to be a character like 
me, liable to headache, to sea-sickness, to all the infirmities ' that 
flesh is heir to,' ami a few others besides; the friends and relations 
of cadgers should therefore use all soft persuasions to induce them 
to remain at home. 

I got into that Mail the other night with as much repugnance 
and trepidation as if it had been a Phalaris' brazen bull, instead of 
a Christian vehicle, invented for purposes of mercy — not of cruelty. 
There were three besides myself when we started, but two dropped 
off at the end of the first stage, and the rest of the way I had, as 
usual, half of the coach to myself. My fellow-passenger had that 
highest of all terrestrial qualities, which for me a fellow-passenger 
can possess — he was silent. I think his name was Roscoe, and he 
read sundry long papers to himself, with the pondering air of a 
lawyer. 

We breakfasted at Lichfield, at five in the morning, on muddy 
coffee and scorched toast, which made me once more lyrically recog- 
nise in my heart (not without a sigh of regret) the very different 
coffee and toast with which you helped me out of my headache. 
At two there was another stop of ten minutes, that might be em- 
ployed in lunching or otherwise. Feeling myself more fevered 
than hungry, I determined on spending the time in combing my 
hair and washing my face and hands with vinegar. In the midst 
of this solacing operation I heard what seemed to be the Mail run- 
ning its rapid course, and quick as lightning it flashed on me, 
'There it goes! and my luggage is on the top of it, and my purse 
is in the pocket of it, and here am I stranded on an unknown 
beacli. without so much as a sixpence in my pocket to pay for the 



12 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



vinegar I have already consumed ! ' Without my bouuet, my hair 
hanging down my back, my face half dried, and the towel, with 
■which I was drying it, firm grasped in my hand, I dashed out — 
along, down, opening wrong doors, stumbling over steps, cursing 
the day I was born, still more the day on which a took I notion 
to travel, and arrived finally at the bar of the Inn, in a state 
of excitement bordering on lunacy. The barmaids looked at 
me 'with weender and amazement.' 'Is the coach gone?' I 
gasped out. ' The coach? Yes! ' ' Oh ! and you have let it away 
without me! Oh! slop it, cannot you stop it V ' and out I rushed 
■into the street, with streaming hair and streaming towel, and al- 
most brained myself against — the Mail! which was standing there 
in all stillness, -without so much as horses iu it! What 1 had heard 
was a heavy coach. And now, having descended like a maniac, I 
ascended again like a fool, and dried the other half of my face, and 
put on ny bonnet, and came back 'a sadder and a wiser' woman. 

I did not find my husband at the ' Swan with Two Necks ';' for 
we were in a quarter of an hour before the appointed time. So I 
had my luggage put on the backs of two porters, and walked on to 
Chcapside, where I presently found a Chelsea omnibus. By and 
by, however, the omnibus stopped, and amid cries of ' No room, 
sir,' 'Can't get in,' Carlyle's face, beautifully set off by a broad 
brimmed white hat, gazed in at the door, like the Peri, who, ' at the 
Gat; of Heaven, stood disconsolate.' In hurrying along the Strand, 
pretty sure of being too late, amidst, all the imaginable and unim- 
aginable phenomena which the immense thoroughfare of a street 
presents, his eye (Heaven bless the mark!) had lighted on my trunk 
perched on the top of the omnibus, and had recognised it. This 
seems to me one of the most indubitable proofs of genius which he 
ever manifested. Happily, a passenger went out a little further 
on, and then he got in. 

My brother-in-law had gone two days before, so my arrival was 
most well-timed. I found all at home right and tight; my maid 
seems to have conducted herself quite handsomely iu my absence; 
my best room looked really inviting. A bust of Shelley (a present 
from Leigh Hunt), and a fine print of Albert Diirer, handsomely 
framed (also a present) had still further ornamented it during my ab- 
sence. I also found (for I wish to tell you all my satisfaction) 
every grate in the house furnished with a supply of coloured clip- 
pings, and the holes in the stair-carpet all darned, so that it looks 
like new. They gave me tea and fried bacon, and staved off my 
headache as well as might be. They were very kind to me, but, ou 
my life, everybody is kind to me, and to a degree that fills me with 
admiration. I feel so strong a wish to make you all convinced 
how very deeply I feel your kindness, and just the more I would 
say, the less able I am to say anything. 

God bless you all. Love to all, from the head of the house down 
totJohuuy. 

Your affectionate 

Jaue W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 14. 

This ' Fairy' Tale ' I have never yet seen; must have been de- 
stroyed by her afterwards. Next bit of MS. sent (Dialogue &c, 
much admired by Sterling) is still here, and shall be given at the 
due place. — T. C. 

To John Sterling, Esq., Floriac, Bordeaux. 

Feb. 1, 1837. 

My ever dear John Sterling, — Here are thirty-three pages of writ- 
ing for you, which would divide into ten letters of the usual size, 
so that you see I discharge my debt to you handsomely enough iu 
the long run. But even if you should not be complaisant enough 
to accept a nonsense fairy-tale in lieu of all the sense-letters I ought 
to have sent you, still you must not be after saying or thinking 
that 'Mrs. Carlyle has cut you acquaintance.' John Sterling 'is a 
man of sense ' (as Mrs, Buller, one day, iu Carlyle's hearing, said 
patronisingly of the Apostle Paul), and must know that Mrs. Car- 
lyle is a woman of sense by this token, that she perceived him, 
John Sterling, the very first "time she ever set e3'es on him, to be no 
humbug, after all that had been said and sung about him, but the 
very sort of man one desires to see, and hardly ever succeeds in 
seeing in this make-believe world! Now I put it to your can- 
dour, whether any women of sense, in her right senses, having 
found a pearl of great price, would dream of dissolving it in a 
tumbler of water and swallowing it all at one gulp ? For such, 
in highly figurative language, would be the foolish use I should 
have made of your friendship, provided it were true, as you 
wrote, that I had already cut your acquaintance! Oh, no! you 
have only to take a just view of your own merits and mine, to 
feel as convinced as though 1 had sworn it before a magistrate that 
my long silence had proceeded from some 'crook in the lot,' and 
not in the mind. 

The fact is. since I became so sick and dispirited I have con- 
tracted a horror of letter-writing, almost equal to the hydrophobia 
horror for cold wafer. I would write anything under heaven— fairy- 
tales, or advertisements for Warren's Blacking even — rather than a 
letter! A letter behoves I o tell about oneself, and when oneself is dis- 
agreeable to oneself, one would rather tell about anything else; for, 
alas I one does not find the same gratification in dwelling upon one's 



own sin and misery, as in showing up the sin and misery of one's 
neighbour. But if ever I get agreeable to myself again, I swear to 
you I will then be exceedingly communicative, in preparation for 
which desirable end I must set about getting into better health, and 
that I may get into better health I must begin by growing wise, 
which puts me in mind of a boy of the 'English Opium-Eater's,' , 
who told me once he would begin Greek presently; but his father 
wished him to learn it through the medium of Latin, and he was 
in d entered in Latin yet because his father wished to teach him from 
a grammar of his own, which he had not yet begun to write! 

For the present we are all in sad taking with influenza. People 
speak about it more than they did about cholera; I do not know 
whether they die more from it. Miss Wilson, not having come to 
close quarters with it, has her mind sufficiently at leisure to make 
philosophical speculations about its gender! She primly promul- 
gates her opinion that influenza is masculine. My husband, for the 
sake of argument I presume, for I see not what' other interest he 
has in it, protests that influenza is feminine; for me, who have been 
laid up with it for two weeks and upwards, making lamentations of 
Jeremiah (not without reason), 1 am not prejudiced either way, but 
content myself with sincerely wishing it were neuter. One great 
comfort, however, under all afflictions, is that 'The French Revo- 
lution' is happily concluded; at least, it will be a comfort when one 
is delivered from the tag-raggery of printers' devils, that at present 
drive one from post to pillar. Quelle vie! let no woman who values 
peace of soul ever dream of marrying an author! That is to say, 
if he is an honest one, who makes a conscience of doing the thing 
he pretends to do. But this I observe to you in confidence, should 
I state such a sentiment openly, I might happen to get myself torn 
in pieces by the host of my husband's lady admirers, who already, 
I suspect, think me too happy in not knowing my happiness. You 
cannot fancy what way he is making with the fair intellects here! 
There is Harriet Martineau presents him witli her ear-trumpet with 
a pretty blushing air of coquetiw, which would almost convince me 
out of belief in her identity! And Mrs. Pierce Butler bolts in upon 
his studies, out of the atmosphere as it were, in riding-habit, cap 
and whip (but no shadow of a horse, only a carriage, the whip I 
suppose being to whip the cushions with, for the purpose of keep- 
ing her hand in practice) — my inexperienced Scotch domestic re- 
maining entirely in a nonplus whether she had let in ' a leddy or a 
gentleman'! And then there is a young American beauty — such a 
beauty! ' snow and rose-bloom ' throughout, not as to clothes merely, 
but complexion also; large and soft, and without; one idea, you 
would say, to rub upon another! And this charming creature pub- 
licly declares herself his 'ardent admirer,' and I heard her with 
my own ears call out quite passionately at parting with him, ' Oh, 
Mr. Carlyle, I want to see you to talk a long long time about — 
" Sartor" '! 'Sartor,' of all things in this world! What could such 
a young lady have got to say about 'Sartor,' can you imagine? 
And Mrs. Marsh, the moving authoress of the 'Old Man's Tales,' 
reads 'Sartor' when she is ill in bed; from which one thing at least 
may be clearly inferred, that her illness is not of the head. In 
short, my dear friend, the singula*' author of ' Sartor' appears to 
me at this moment to be in a perilous position, inasmuch as (with 
the inuocenceof a sucking dove to outward appearance) he is leading 
honourable women, not a few, entirely off their feel And who 
can say that he will keep his own? After all, iu sober earnest, is it 
not curious that my husband's writings should be only completely 
understood and adequately appreciated by women and mad people? 
I do not know very well what to infer from the fact. 

Mr. Spedding is often to be heard of at Miss Wilson's (not that I 
fancy anything amiss in that quarter, only I mentioned him be- 
cause he is your friend). Mr. Maurice we rarely see, nor do I 
greatlj r regret his absence; for, to tell you the truth, I am never in 
his company without being attacked with a sort of paroxysm of 
mental cramp! He keeps one always, with his wire drawings and 
paradoxes, as if one were dancing on the points of one's toes 
(spiritually speaking). And then he will help with the kettle, and 
never fails to pour it all over the milk-pot aud sugar-basin I Henry 
Taylor draws off into the upper regions of gigmauity. The rest, I 
think, are all as you left them. 

Your mother was here last night, looking young and beautiful, 
with a new bonnet from Howel and James's. Your brother is a 
great favourite with Carlyle, and with me also, only one dare not 
fly into his arms as one does into yours. Will you give my affec- 
tionate regards to your wife, and a kiss for me to each of the chil- 
dren? Ask your wife to write a postscript in your next letter; I 
deserve some such sign of recollection from her, in return for all 
the kind thoughts I cherish in her. I wish to heaven you were all 
back again. You make a terrible chasm in our world, which does 
not look as if it were ever going to get closed in. You will write 
to me? You will be good enough to write to me after all? There 
is nothing that I do not fancy you good enough for. So I shall 
confidently expect a letter. God bless you, aud all that belongs to 
you. 

I am, ever affectionately yours, 

Jahe W. Carlyle. 

Carlyle has made every exertion to get you a printed copy of the 
' Diamond Necklace,' but it is not to be got this day. He adds his 
brotherly regards. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



13 



LETTER 15. 

Early in January 1837 it must have been when book on ' French 
Revolution ' was finished. I wrote the last paragraph of it here 
(within a yard of where I now am) in her presence one evening 
after dinner. Damp tepid kind of evening, still by daylight, read 
it to her or left her to read it ; probably with a ' Thank God, it is 
done, Jeannie!' and then walked out up the Gloucester Road to- 
wards Kensington way : don't remember coming back, or indeed any- 
thing quite distinct for three or four mouths after. My thoughts 
were by no means of an exultant character: pacifically gloomy 
rather, something of sullenly contemptuous in them, of clear hope 
(except in the 'desperate' kind) not the smallest glimpse. I had 
said to her, perhaps that very day, ' I know not whether this book 
is worth anything, nor what the world will do with it, or misdo, or 
entirely forbear to do (as is likeliest), but this I could tell the 
world:" You have not had for a hundred years any book that came 
more direct and fiamingly sincere from the heart of a living man; 

do with it what you like, you !' My poor little Jeannie and 

me, hasn't it nearly killed us both? This also I might have said, 
had I liked it, for it. was true. My health was much spoiled ; hers 
too by sympathy, by daily helping me to struggle with the intol- 
erable load. I suppose by this time our money, too, was near 
done: busy friends, the Wilsons principally, Miss Martineau, and 
various honourable women, were clear that I ought now to lecture 
on 'German Literature,' a sure financial card, they all said; and 
set to shaping, organising, and multifariously consulting about the 
thing; which I unwillingly enough, but seeing clearly there was 
no other card in my hand at all, was obliged to let them do. The 
printing of 'French Revolution,' push as I might, did not end till 
far on in April — 'Lectures,' six of them, of which I could form no 
image or conjecture beforehand, were to begin with May. — T. C. 

To John Welsh, Esq., Liverpool. 

5 Cheyne Row; March 4, 1837. 

Dearest Uncle of me, — ' Fellow-feeling makes us wondrous 
kind '! You and my aunt have had the influenza: I also have had 
the influenza: a stronger bond of sympathy need not be desired: 
and so the spirit moves me to write you a letter; and if you think 
there is no very ' wondrous kindness ' in that, I can only say you 
are mistaken, seeing that I have had so much indispensable writing 
to do of late days that, like a certain Duchess of Orleans I was read- 
ing about the other week, ' when night comes, I am often so tired 
with writing, that I can hardly put one foot before the other'! 

But with respect to this influenza, uncle, what think you of it? 
above all how is it. and why is it? For my part, with all my clever- 
ness, I cannot make it out. Sometimes I am half persuaded that 
there is (in Cockney dialect) 'ado at the bottom on it'; medical 
men all over the world having merely entered into a tacit agreement 
to call all sorts of maladies people are liable to, in cold weather, by 
one name; so that one sort of treatment may serve for all, and their 
practice be thereby greatly simplified. In more candid moments, 
however, I cannot help thinking that it has something to do with 
the ' diffusion of useful kuowledge': if not a part of that knowl- 
edge, at least, that it is meant as a counterpoise; so that our minds 
may be preserved in some equilibrium, between the consciousness 
of our enormous acquirements on the one hand, and on the other 
the generally diffused experience that all the acquirements in the 
world are not worth a rush to one, compared with the blessedness 
of having a head clear of snifters! However it be, I am thankful 
to Heaven that I was the chosen victim in this house, instead of my 
husband. For, had he been laid up at present, there would have 
been the very devil to pay. He has two printers on his book, that 
it may. if possible, be got published in April; and it will hardly be 
well oil his hands, when he is to deliver a course of Lectures on 
German Literature to 'Lords and Gentlemen,' and 'honourable 
women not a few.' You wonder how he is to get through such a 
thing? So do I, very sincerely. The more, as he proposes to speak 
these lectures extempore, Heaven bless the mark! having, indeed, 
no leisure to prepare them before the time at which they will be 
wanted. 

One of his lady-admirers (by the way he is getting a vast number 
of lady-admirers) was saying the other day that the grand danger 
to be feared for him was that he should commence with ' Gentle- 
men and Ladies,' instead of 'Ladies and Gentlemen,' a transmuta- 
tion which would ruin him at the very outset. He vows, however, 
that he will say neither the one thing nor the other, and I believe him 
very secure on that side. Indeed. I should as soon look to see gold 
pieces, or penny loaves drop out of his mouth, as to hear from it 
any such humdrum nnrepublican-like commonplace. If he finds it 
necessary to address his audience by any particular designation, it 
will be thus — 'Men and Women'! or perhaps, in my Penfillan 
grandfather's style, 'Fool-creatures come here for diversion.' On 
the whole, if his hearers be reasonable, and are content that there 
be good sense in the things he says, without requiring that he 
should furnish them with brains to find it out, I have no doubt but 
his success will be eminent. The exhibition is to take place in 
Willis's Rooms; 'to begin at three, and end at four precisely'; and 
to be continued every Monday and Friday through the first three 
weeks of May. ' Begin precisely ' it may, with proper precautions 
on my part to put all the clocks and watches in the house half-an- 



hour before the time ; but, as to ' ending precisely ' ! that is all to be 
tried for! There are several things in this world, which, once set 
a-going, it is not easy to stop; and the Book is one of them. I have 
been thinking that perhaps the readiest way of bringing him to a 
cetera desunt (conclusion is out of the question) would be, just as 
the clock strikes four, to have a lighted cigar laid on the table before 
him — we shall see! 

The 'French Revolution' done, and the lectures done, he is 
going somewhere (to Scotland most probably) to rest himself 
awhile; to lie about the roots of hedges, and speak to no man, 
woman, or child except in monosyllables! a reasonable project 
enough, considering the worry he has been kept iu for almost three 
years back. For my part, having neither published nor lectured, I 
feel no call to refresh myself by such temporary descent from my 
orbit under the waves; and in Shakespearean dialect, I had such a 
' belly full ' of travelling last year as is likely to quell my appetite, 
in that way, for >;omc time to come. If I had been consulted in the 
getting up of the Litany, there would have been particular mention 
made of steamboats, mail-coaches, and heavy coaches, among those 
things from which we pray to be delivered; and more emphatic 
mention made of ' such as travel by laud or sea.' 

My mother writes to me from Dabton, where she is nursing the 
Crichtons. Iu my humble opinion she is (as my mother-in-law 
would say) 'gey idle o' wark.' I have expended much beautiful 
rhetoric in trying to persuade her hitherward, and she prefers nurs- 
ing these Crichtons! Well! there is no accounting for taste! She 
will come, however, she says, when you have been there, but not 
sooner; so I hope you will pay your visit as early in the season as 
you can, for it would be a pity if she landed as last, time, after all 
the tine weather was gone, and the town emptied. Give my kindest 
love to my kind aunt, and kisses to all the children. I owe my 
cousin Helen a letter, and will certainly be just after having been 
generous. My husband sends his affectionate regards, and hopes 
you received the copies of two articles, which he sent. 

Mr. Gibson has not been here for some weeks; he begins to look 
stiffish, and a little round at the shoulders, otherwise as heretofore. 

God bless you all, my dearest uncle. 

Yours 

Jane Welsh Caelyle. 

LETTER 16. 

Monday, May 1, 1837, iu Willis's Rooms is marked as date of my 
first lecture. It was a sad planless jumble, as all these six were, 
but full enough of new matter, and of a furious determination on 
the poor lecturer's part not to break down. Plenty of incondite 
stuff accordingly there was; new, and in a strangely new dialect 
and tone; the audience intelligent, partly fashionable, wa3 very 
good to me, and seemed, in spite of the jumbled state of things, to 
feel it entertaining, even interesting. I pitied myself, so agitated, 
terrified, driven desperate and furious. But I found I had no 
remedy, necessity compelling; on the proceeds we were financially 
safe for another year, that was my one sanction in the sad enter 
prise. 

Mrs. Welsh from Templand was certainly with us a second time 
at present. Returning to dinner from that first Monday's perform- 
ance I gave to my darling and her, from some of the gold that had 
been handed me, a sovereign each ' to buy something with, as 
handsel of this novelty,' which little gift created such pleasure in 
these generous two as is now pathetic to me, and a kind of blessing 
to remember. When this second visit of our kind mother's began, 
or how long it lasted, I have no recollection. I left her here for 
company, in setting out for Auuandale, whither I made all haste, 
impatient for shelter and silence as soon as the hurlyburly could 
be got. to end. One wish I had — silence! silence! In the latter 
half of June, I got thither. My health had suffered much by 
' French Revolution ' and its accompaniments, especially in the 
later months, when I used to ask myself, Shall I ever actually get 
this savagely cruel business flung off me, then, and be rid of it? — a 
hope which seemed almost incredible. 

Mind and body were alike out of order with me, my nervous sys- 
tem must have been in a horrible state. I remember, iu walking up 
from the Liverpool-Annan steamboat with brother Alick, Alick had 
to call for a moment in some cottage at Landhead, and I waited 
looking back towards Annan and the unrivalled prospect of sea and 
laud which one commands there, leaning on a milestone which I 
knew so well from my school-days; and looking on Solway Sea to 
St. Bee's Head, and all the pretty Cumberland villages, towns, and 
swelling amphitheatre of fertile plains and airy mountains, to me 
the oldest in the world, and the loveliest. What a, changed mean- 
ing in all that! Tartarus itself and the pale kingdoms of Dis could 
not have been more preternatural to me, and I felt, that they could 
not have been more so. Most stern, gloomy, sad, grand, yet terri- 
ble, steeped in woe! This was my humour while in Annaudale. 
Except riding down to Whinnyrigg for a plunge in the sea (seven 
miles and back) daily when tide would serve, I can recollect noth- 
ing that I did there. All speech (except, doubtless, with my 
mother), I did my utmost to avoid. Some books I probably had — 
' Pickwick' and 'Johannes Miiller' (in strange combination, and 
' Pickwick ' the preferable to me!) I do partly remember, but the 
reading of them was as a mere opiate. In this foul torpor, like flax 



14 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



thrown into the steeping pool, I seem to have stayed above two 
months — stayed, in fact, till ashamed to stay longer. As for re- 
covery, that had not yet considerably — in truth, it never fairly — 
came at all. 

Of my darling's beautiful reception of me when I did return, all 
speech is inadequate, for now in my sad thoughts it is like a little 
glimpse of Heaven in this poor turbid earth. I am too unworthy 
of it; alas! how thrice unworthy! A day or two ago I discovered, 
crowded into my first letter from Chelsea, as her postscript, these 
bright words, touching and strange to me [T. C.]: — 

To Mrs. Garlyle, Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea: Sept. 22, 1837. 
My dear Mother, — You know the saying, ' it is not lost which a 
friend gets,' and in the present case it must comfort you for losing 
him. Moreover, you have others behind, and I have only him, 
only him in the \\ liole wide world to love me and take care of me, 
poor little wretch that I am. Not but that numbers of people love 
me after their fashion far better than I deserve; but then hisfashion 
is so different from all these, and seems alone to suit the crotchety 
creature that I am. Thank you then for having, in the first place, 
been kind enough to produce him into this world, and for having, 
in the second place, made him scholar enough to recognize my va- 
rious excellencies; and for having, in the last place sent him back 
to me again to stand by me in this cruel east wind. . . . God bless 
you all. I will write you a letter all to yourself before long, God 
willing. 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 17. 

'More Dialogue 'is more of 'Watch and Canary-bird '(.' Chico ' 
his name). I had been in Scotland lately, or was still there. The 
admired little Dialogue I never could get sight of, while she had 
keeping of it! — T. C. 

To the Rev. John Sterling, BlackJieath. 

Chelsea: Sept.-Oct., 1837. 
My dear Friend, — Being a sending of more dialogue, it were 
downright extravagance to send a letter as well. So I shall merely 
say (your father being sitting impatiently beating with his stick) that 
you are on no account to understand that by either of these dialogi- 
ans I mean to shadow forth my own personality. I think it is not 
superfluous to eive you this warning, because I remember you 
talked of Chico's philosophy of life as my philosophy of life, which 
■was a horrible calumny. 

You can fancy how one must be hurried when your father is iu 
the case. 

God bless you. 

Always yours, 

Jane W. Caklyle. 

Dialogue I. 
The Bird and the Watch. 

Watch. 'Chirp, chirp, chirp;' what a weariness thou art with 
thy chirping! Does it never occur to thee, frivolous thing, that life 
is too short for being chirped away at this rate'.' 

Bird. Never. 1 am no philosopher, but just a plain canary- 
bin 1. 

Watch. At all events, thou art a creature of time that hast been 
hatched, and that will surely die. And, such being the case, me- 
thinks thou art imperatively called upon to think more and to chirp 
less. 

Bird. I 'called upon to think'! How do you make that out? 
Will you be kind enough to specify how my condition would be 
improved by thought? Could thought procure me one grain of seed 
or one drop of water beyond what my mistress is pleased to give? 
Could it procure me one eighth of an inch, one hair's-breadth more 
room to move about in, or could it procure me to be hatched over 
again with better auspices, in fair green wood beneath the blue free 
sky? I imagine not. Certainly I never yet betook myself to thinking 
instead of singing, that I did not end in dashing wildly against, the 
wires of my cage, with sure loss of feathers and at the peril of limb 
and life. No, no, Madam Gravity, in this very conditional world, 
depend upon it, he that thinks least will live the longest, and song 
is belter than sense for carrying one handsomely along. 

Watch. You confess, then, without a blush, that you have no 
other aim in existence than to kill time? 

Bird, .lust sij. If I were not always a killing of «time, time, I 
can tell you. would speedily kill me. Heigh ho! I wish you had 
ii"! interrupted me in my singing. 

Watch. Thou sighest, 'Chico;' there is a drop of bitterness at 
the bottom of this troth of levity. Confess the truth; thou art not 
without compunction as to thy course of life. 

Vi.nl. Indeed, but I am, though. It is for the Power that made 
me and placed me here to feel compunction, if any is lo be fell 
Forme, I do but fulfil my destiny: in the appointing of it. 1 bad 
no hand. It was with no consent of mine thai 1 ever was hatched; 
for the blind instinct that led me to chip the shell! and so exchange 
my natural prison for one made with hands, can hardl}' be imputed 



Jenkiu's hen. 3 ' Chico, 
' 1 leaven be my 
I have seen poets, phi- 



to me as an act of volition; it was with no consent of mine that I 
was fated to live and move within the wires of a cage, where a 
fractured skull and broken wings are the result of all endeavour 
towards the blue infinite, nor yet was it with consent of mine that 
I was made to depend for subsistence, not on my own faculties and 
exertions, but on the bounty of a fickle mistress, who starves me at 
one time and surfeits me at another. Deeply from my inmost soul 
I have protested, and do and will protest against all this. If, then, 
the chirping with which I stave off sorrow and ennui be an offence 
to the would-be wise, it is not 1 but Providence should bear the 
blame, having placed me in a condition where there is no alterna- 
tive but to chirp or die, and at the same time made self-preserva- 
tion the first instinct of all living things. 

Watch. ' Unhappy Chico! ' not in thy circumstances, but in thy- 
self lies the mean impediment over which thou canst not gain the 
mastery.' 2 The lot thou complainest of so petulantly is. with slight 
variation, the lot of all. Thou art not free? Tell me who is? 
Alas, my bird ! Here sit prisoners; there also do prisoners sit. 
This world is all prison, the only difference for 1 hose who inhabit 
it being in the size and aspect of the cells; while some of these 
stand revealed in cold strong nakedness for what they really are, 
others are painted to look like sky overhead, and open country all 
around, but the bare and the painted walls are alike impassable, 
and fall away only at the coming of the Angel of Death. 

Bird. Withall due reverence for thy universal insight, picked up 
Heaven knows how, in spending thy days at the bottom of a dark 
fob, I must continue to think that the birds of the air, for example, 
are tolerably free; at least, they lead a stirring, pleasurable sort of 
life, which may well be called freedom in comparison with this of 
mine. Oh that, like them. I might skim the azure and hop among 
the boughs; that, like them, I might have a nest I could call my 
own, and a wife of my own choosing, that I might fly away from, 
the instant she wearied me! Would that the egg I was hatched 
from had been addled, or that I had perished while yet unfledged! 
I am weary of my life, especially since thou hast constituted thyself 
my spiritual adviser. Ay de mi! But enough of this: it shall 
never be told that I died the death of 
point ili fitibh ■■.«<'.' J 

Watch. It were more like a Christian to say, 
strength.' 

Bird. And pray what is a Christian? 
losophers, politicians, bluestockings, philanthropists, all sorts of 
notable people about my mistress; but no Christian, so far as I am 
aware. 

Watch. Bird! thy spiritual darkness exceeds belief. What can I 
say to thee'.' I wish 1 could make thee wiser, belter! 

Bird. If wishes were saws. I should request you lo saw me a pas- 
sage through those wires; but wishes being simply wishes, I desire 
to be lei alone of them. 

Watch. Good counsel at least is not to be rejected, and I gi\ e the 
best, wouldst thou but lay it to heart. Look around thee, Chico — 
around and within. Ascertain, if thou canst, the main source of 
thy discontent, and toward the removal of that direct thy whole fac- 
ulties and energies. Even should thy success prove incomplete, the 
very struggle will be productive of good. 'An evil,' says a great 
German thinker, ' ceases to be an evil from the moment in which we 
begin to combat it.' Is it what you call loss of liberty that flings the 
darkest shadow over your soul? If so, you have only to take a cor- 
rect and philosophical view of the subject instead of a democratic 
sentimental one, and you will find, as other captives have done, 
that I bete is more real 'freedom within the walls of a prison than in 
the distracting tumult without. Ah, Chico, in pining for the pleas- 
ures and excitements which lie beyond these wires, take also into 
account the perils and hardships. ' Think what the bird of the air 
has to suffer from the weather, from boys and beasts, and even 
' from other birds. Storms and snares and unknown woes beset it at 
every turn, from all which you have been mercifully delivered in 
being once for all cooped up here. 

Bird. There is one known woe, however, from which I have not 
been delivered in being cooped up here, and that is your absolute 
wisdom and impertinent interference, from which same I pray 
Heaven to take me with all convenient speed. If ever I attain to 
freedom, trust me, the very first use I shall make of it shall be to 
fly where your solemn prosy tick shall not reach me any more for 
ever. Evil befall the hour when my mistress and your master took 
it into their heads to 'swear eternal friendship,' and so occasion 
a juxtaposition betwixt us two which nature could never have 
meant. 

Watch. 'My master'? Thou imbecile. I own no master; 
rather am I his mistress, of whom thou speakest. Nothing can he- 
do without appealing to me as to a second better conscience, and it 
is I who decide for him when he is incapable of deciding for him- 
self. I say to him, It is time to go, and he goeth; or, There is time 
to stay, and he stayeth. Hardly is he awake of a morning when I 
tick authoritatively into his ear, 'Levez-vous, monsieur ! Vous avez 
desgrandes choses & faire;' 1 and forthwith he gathers himself to- 
gether lo enjoy the light of a new day — if no better may be. And 

1 The name was of my giving. ' Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. 

' Ann.'indale cornier proverb, originating 1 know not how. 

4 ' Da Hf on, point de,' &c. 6 St. Simon (he of 1825, n. b. 1). 



/ 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



15 



is not every triumph he ever gained over natural indolence to be at- 
tributed to my often-repeated remonstrance, 'Work, for the night 
cometh ' ?. Ay, and when the night is come, and he lays himself 
down, I take my place at his bed-head, and, like the teuderest nurse, 
tick him to repose. 

Bird. And suppose he neglected to wind thee up, or that thy main- 
spring chanced to snap? What would follow then? Would the 
world stand still in cousequence? Would thy master — for such he is 
to all intents and purposes — lie for ever in bed expecting thy Levez- 
vous? Would there be nothing in the wide universe besides thee to 
tell him what o'clock it was? Impudent piece of mechanism! Thing 
of springs and wheels, in which flows no life-blood, beats no heart! 
Depend upon it, for all so much as thou thinkest of thyself, tliou 
couldst be done without. 11 ny a ■point do montre necessaire ! ' The 
artisan who made thee with files and pincers could make a thousand 
of thee to order. Cease, then, to deem thyself a fit critic and law- 
giver for any living soul. Complete of thy kind, tick on, with in- 
fallible accuracy, sixty ticks to the minute, through all eternity if 
thou wilt and canst; but do not expect such as have hearts in their 
breasts to keep time with thee. A heart is a spontaneous, impul- 
sive thing, which cannot, I would have thee know, be made to beat 
always at one measured rate for the good pleasure of any time-piece 
that ever was put together. And so good day to thee, for here 
comes one who, thank Heaven, will put thee into his fob, and so 
end our tete-a-tete. 

Watch. (With a sigh.) ' The living on earth have much to bear! ' 

J. W. C. 

This is the piece mentioned in Sterling's Life, p. 304 (he had seen 
it; I never did till now, she refusing me, as usual; nor did I know 
for certain that it was in existence still). ' Chico ' (Tin.)/, in Span- 
ish) was our canary bird, brought from Craigenpultock hither on 
her knee. The ' Watch ' had been her mother's; it is now (August, 
1866) her mother's niece's (Maggie Welsh's, for two months back). 
A 'Remonstrance,' now placed here, is from the same 'Watch,' 
probably several years later. Or perhaps this is the ' farther send- 
ing' letter referred to in Letter No. 39 (1837) vaguely as in second 
bit of dialogue? No ' second ' otherwise, of any kind, is now dis- 
coverable. (August 15, 1869, my last day at present on this sad and 
sacred task). — T. C. insomnia (as to much). 

Remonstrance of my Old Watch. 

What have I done to you, that you should dream of ' tearing out 
my inside' and selling me away for an old song? Is your heart be- 
come hard as the nether millstone, that you overlook long familiar- 
ity and faithful service, to take up with the new-fangled gimcracks 
of the day? Did I ever play thee false? I have been driven with 
you, been galloped with you over the roughest roads; have been 
'jolted ' as never watch was; and all this without 'sticking up ' a 
single time, or so much as lagging behind! Nay, once I remember 
(the devil surely possessed you at that moment) you pitched me out 
of your hand as though I had been a worthless pincushion; and 
even that unprecedented shock I sustained with unshaken nerves! 
Try any of your new favourites as you have tried me; send the little 
wretch you at present wear within your waistband smack against a 
deal floor, and if ever it stirred more in this world, I should think 
it little less than a miracle. 

Bethink you then, misguided woman, while it is yet time! If 
not for my sake, for your own, do not complete your barbarous 
purpose. Let not a passing womanish fancy lead you from what 
has beeu the ruling principle of your life — a detestation of shams 
and humbug. For, believe me, these little watches are arrant 
shams, if ever there was one. They are not watches so much as 
lockets with watch faces. The least rough handling puts them out 
of sorts; a jolt is fatal; they cost as much in repairs every year as 
their original price; and when they in their turn come to have their 
insides torn out, what have you left? Hardly gold enough to make 
a good-sized thimble. 

But if you are deaf to all suggestions of common-sense, let senti- 
ment plead for me in your breast. Remember how daintily you 
played with me iu your childhood, deriving from my gold shine 
your first ideas of worldly splendour. Remember how, at a more 
advanced age, you longed for the possession of me and of a riding- 
habit and whip, as comprising all that was most desirable in life! 
And when at length your mother made me over' to you, remember 
how feelingly (so feelingly that you shed tears) I brought home to 
your bosom the maxim of your favourite Goethe, ' The wished-for 
comes too late.' And oh! for the sake of all these touching re- 
membrances, cast me not off, to be dealt with in that shocking 
manner; but if, through the caprice of fashion, I am deemed no 
longer fit to be seen, make me a little pouch inside your dress, and 
I am a much mistaken watch if you do not admit in the long run 
that my solid merit is far above that of any half dozen of these 
lilliputian upstarts. 

And so, betwixt hope and fear, I remain. 

Your dreadfully agitated 

Watch. 



. point d'homme,' 



Napoleon used to say. 



I find so much reason as well as pathos and natural eloquence in 
the above that I shall proceed no further with the proposed ex- 
change. 

Jane. 

LETTER 18. 

From Phcebe Chorley to Thomas Carlyle, London 

(favoured by II. F. Chorley). 

Thus to venture unbidden into thy presence may seem some- 
what startling to thee in a woman, and a member of the quiet, un- 
obtrusive Society of Friends; but thou must thank the originality, 
the first rate talent, tiie taste, the poetry of thy three wouderful 
volumes cu the French Revolution for drawing on thee the inflic- 
tion, it may be, of mere commonplace sentences in my endeavour 
to express, however inadequately, the deep unspeakable interest 
with which I am perusing thy admirable narrative of the events 
which astonished and horrified the civilised world forty-five years 
ago. 

The style, described to me before I saw the work, as ' peculiar 
and uninviting,' I deem of all others calculated to convey the fer- 
vour, the fierceness, and the atrocity alternately possessing the feel- 
ings of those the chief actors in that most sanguinary drama. So 
perfectly graphic, too, a painter need desire no better study to im- 
prove his art. lean distinctly see the ancient Merovingian kings 
on their bullock carts ; and the chamber of the dying Loins Quinze 
with all its accompaniments; and the new Korff berlin, and its 
wretched, vacillating inmates — the poor queen issuing into the 
street and lost there. Oh! the breathless anxiety of that journey; 
how one longed to speed them forward, especially, I think, for her 
sake, whose curse it was, in a new era, wheu the light broke 
through the Cimmerian darkness of ages, to be united to a man of 
that mediocre sort, who is incapable of reading the fiery language 
of passing events, and yet not content to be wholly passive. Oh! 
how the very depths of my heart are stirred up responsive to the 
humiliations and sufferings of that high-minded, erring woman; 
she stands there before me in the window at Versailles, the untasted 
cup of coffee in her hand! A spell is completely cast over me by the 
waving of the enchanter's wand, given to thee to wield for the in- 
struction of thy less- gifted fellow mortals. 

Go on and prosper, saith my whole soul. Such abilities as thine 
were never designed to be folded in a napkin; use tliem worthily, 
and they will bless thyself and thousands. I am truly rejoiced a 
writer has at last sprung up to do justice to modem history — a 
greatl3 r neglected species of literature — and to present it in colours 
so attractive that, as certainly as mind recognises mind, and speaks 
to it, and is comprehended by it, so certainly will ' The French 
Revolution' of Thomas Carlyle be read and approved by all men, 
and all women too, endowed with any of that Promethean fire 
which he seems to fetch down from heaven at will, and finally win 
its way through all obstructions to form a part — an important part 
— of the standard of the English language. 

Je lejure (I swear it), Chapter VI., Book i., vol. ii. : — The open- 
ing paragraph on Hope is exquisitely constructed. I cannot recall 
to memory a more felicitous arrangement of words than this para- 
graph displays. It has become incorporated with the very texture 
of my thoughts, 'a sacred Constantiue's banner written on the 
eternal skies.' 

Henry Chorley, the bearer of this, can tell thee how his own 
family and my brother and sister Crosfield, all of them people of 
mind, have been delighted with thy production. Accept my most 
cordial individual thanks for the rich intellectual banquet thou hast 
provided. All other books will appear so tame and flat in compari 
son with these, that I know not what to turn to when I shall have 
done with the third volume, which travels into the country to- 
morrow with 

Thy sincere friend and admirer, 

Phcede Chorley. 

Copied in her hand for my mother, after which: 

Chelsea: March-April, 1S38. 

There, dear mother! Pretty fairish for a prim Quakeress, don't 
you think? Just fancy her speaking all these transcendental flat- 
teries from under a little starched cap and drab-coloured bonnet! 
I wonder how old she is; and if she is, or has been, or expects ever 
to be married? Don't you? Perhaps the spirit may move her to 
come hither next, and cultivate still more her 'favourable senti- 
ments.' Well, let her! I could pardon her any absurdity almost, 
in consideration of that beautiful peculiarity she possessed, of ad- 
miring his very style, which has hitherto exceeded the capacity of 
admiration in all men, women, and children that have made the 
attempt. 

An enthusiastic Quaker once gave Edward Irving a gig. I 
wonder if this enthusiastic Quakeress will give Carlyle one; it 
would be excessively useful here. 

We have fine weather, and I am nearly rid of my cough again. 
Carlyle has fallen to no work yet; but is absolutely miserable 
nevertheless. Ellen is pretty strong again, and I hope will be able 



16 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



to ' carry on '—at least, ' till Lonsdale coorn. ' ' Chieo has got a new- 
cage from a gentleman, not a Quaker. So, you see, all goes toler- 
ably here. Love to Jenny; remember me to Robert, 

Your affectionate 

Jane Carltle.. 

LETTER 19. 

To Miss Helen Welsh, Liverpool. 

Chelsea: May 27, 1838. 

Cousin, gracious and benign, —Beautiful is it to see thy tender 
years bearing such blossoms of tolerance; for tolerance is not in 
general the virtue of youth, but only of mature or even old age- 
experienced age, which after long and sure ' kicking against the 
pricks,' has learned for itself what it would not take on hearsay, 
that the world we live in is of necessity, and has been, and ever 
will be, an erring and conditional world; and that in short, all men, 
women, and children, beginning with ourselves, are shockingly im- 
perfect. So that there is none justified in saying with self-compla- 
cency, ' black is the eye ' of another. Indeed, I should have felt it 
hard to have been reproached by you for not writing; you, who 
have health and no cares, cannot at all estimate the effort I make, 
and doing anything that can be let alone without immediate detri- 
ment to the State or the individual. 

1 have had so much to bear, for a long, long time back, from the 
derangement of my interior, that when a day of betterness does ar- 
rive, 1 am tempted, instead of employing it in writing letters, or in 
doing duties of whatever sort, to make a sort of child's play-day of 
it, and then, when my head is aching, or my cough troublesome— 
01), Helen dear, may you never know by experience how difficult it 
is in such circumstances, to write a letter all about uothing, even to 
a sweet-faced, well-beloved cousin! 

We were just then in the first ferment of our Lectures,-' which 
are still going on, and keeping up an extra degree of tumult within 
ami without us. However, he has been borne through the first 
eight ' with au honourable through-bearing,' and I dare say will not 
break down in the remaining four. The audience is fair in quan- 
tity (more thau fair, considering that he is a lecturer on his own 
basis, unconnected with any 'Royal Institution.' or the like); and 
in quality it is unsurpassable; there are women so beautiful and 
intelligent, that they look like emanations from the moon; and 
men whose faces are histories, in which one may lead with ever 
new interest. On the whole, if he could get sleep at nights, while 
the lecturing goes forward, and if I might look on without being 
perpetually reminded by the pain in my head, or some devilry or 
other, that I am a mere woman, as the Annan Bailie reminded the 
people who drank his health at a Corporation dinner that he was a 
mere man — (' O gentlemen! remember that I am but a man of like 
passions with yourselves') — we should find this new trade rather 
agreeable. In the meanwhile, with all its drawbacks, it answers 
the end. ' gloire,' says a French poet, ' donnez-moi du pain ! ' 
And glory too often turns a deaf ear to this reasonable request; but 
8he is kind enough to grant it to us in the present instauce; so 
allons, let us ' eat fire,' as Carlyle calls it, since people are disposed 
to give their money for such exhibition, over and above their ap- 
plause. 

My husband wishes and needs a change; and a climate where I 
should not need to be confined for months together to the house (I 
may say to two rooms) were a manifest improvement in my lot. It 
was dreary work last winter, though by incredible precautions I 
kept myself perpendicular; and the winter before is horrible to think 
of, even at this date A single woman (by your leave be it said) 
maybe laid up with comparative ease of mind; but in a country 
where a man is allowed only one wife, and needs that one for other 
purposes thau mere show, it is a singular hardship for all parties, 
when she misgives anyhow, so as to be rendered wholly ineffectual. 
I had a box from mother the other day, which came, I believe, 
through you. 

Everything rich, everything rare. 

Save young Nourmahl, was blowing there. 

By the way, Carlyle breakfasted with Thomas Moore the other 
morning, and fancied him. 

1 hope very sincerely that my aunt is quite well again, and should 
like to be assured of it by some of you. (live her and uncle, and 
the whoh generation, my warmest affection. Carlyle joins me in 
good wishes for you all; and behold! I remain your faithful attached, 
in spite of appearances, cousin, 

Jane Carlyle. 

. LETTER 20. 

This autumn, after lectures, printing of ' Sartor, ' &c. , I steam- 
ered to Kirkcaldy; was in Scotland five or six weeks — to Edin- 
burgh twice or tljrice; to Minto Manse (Dr. Aitken's, now married 
to 'Bess Stoddart,' heiress of old Bradfute, and very rich'); thence. 

i Old Cumberland woman, listening as the newspaper was read, Cull of bat- 
tling.', warring, and tumult all over the world, exclaimed at last.: ' Aye, they II 
tarry on till Lonsdale eoom, and he'll soon settle them aw! ' A female part- 
ner was provided Cor Chico; on first introducing this latter I" me, with what 
an inimitable air my bright one, recounting her purchase, parodied that 
Covent Garden ehaunt, ' The all-wise, great Great ■• : 17 that lie . . . '.' 
(See p. ZZ-1 

- Second course, delivered in the spring of 



after dull short sojourn, through Hawick, Langholm to Scotsbrig 
(mother absent in Manchester); to Chelsea again, early in October. 
Vivid at this hour are all these movements to me; but not worth 
noting: only the Kirkcaldy part, with the good Ferguses, and, 
after twenty years of absence, was melodiously interesting to me. 
more or less. Ay de mi, all gone, now, all! — T. C. 

To T. Carlyle, at Kirkcaldy. 

Chelsea: Aug. 30, 1838. 

Dear Husband of me. — I was most thankful to hear an articulate 
cheep (chirp) from you once more, for the little notekiu ' did neither 
ill nor glide.' But this is a clear and comprehensive view of the 
matter, which may satisfy the female mind, for a time, and de- 
serves a most ample threepenny in return. 1 I would have sat down 
instantly on receiving it, and made a clean breast of all my think- 
ings and doings, in the first fervour of enthusiasm, which such a 
good letter naturally inspired; but the letter came at one, and at 
two the carriage was ordered to convey me to pass the day with 

Mrs. C ; so it was plain, you could not get the ' first rush o' the 

tea,' without being stinted in quantity. But this morning, I have 
said it, that nothing short of au earthquake shall hinder me from 
filling this sheet. 

First of all, then, dear 111, 8 I am, and have been, in perfectly 
good case so far as the body is concerned. ' Association of Ideas' 
was like to have played the devil with me at first. The first night 
after your departure, I slept three hours ; the second, forty minutes; 
and the third, none at all. If I had a cow, I should have bade it 
'consider;' 3 having none it was necessary to 'consider' myself. 
So I applied to Dr. Marshall 4 for any sort of sleeping-draught, 
which had no opium in it, to break, if possible, this spell at the out- 
set. He gave me .something, consisting of red-lavender and other 
stimulants, which ' took an effect on me.' 6 Not that I swallowed 
it! I merely set it by my bedside; and the feeliug of lying down 
under new circumstances, of having a resource in short, put me to 
sleep! One night, indeed, the imagination was not enough; and I 
did take the thing into my inside, where it made all 'cosy'; and 
since then I have slept as well as usual; nor did these bad nights do 
me any visible harm. Helen " asks me every morning ' if I have no 
headache yet?' And when I answer, none, she declares it to be 
quite 'mysterious 1 ' In fact, 1 believe Mrs. Elliot's cab is of very 
material service in keeping me well. And I hope you will become 
a great Paid, and then we shall sometimes have a 'bit clatcli.' 8 
I have driven out most days, from two till four, quite regularly. I 
also take care to have some dinner quite regularly. And I contrive 
to sup on Cape Madeira, which seems to be as good for me as por- 
ridge, after all. For the rest, my chief study is to keep myself tran- 
quil and cheerful; convinced thai 1 can do nothing so.useful, either 
for myself or others. Accordingly, I read French novels, or any- 
thing that diverts me. without compunction; and sew no more, at 
curtains or anything else, than I feel to be pleasant. 

For company. I have had enough to satisfy all my social wants. 
One visitor per da}' would content me; and I have often had more. 
Two tea-shines 9 went off with eclat, the more so that the people 
came, for most part, at their own peril. The first consisted of Mr. 
and Mrs. Crawfurd, George Rennie and his wife, Mrs. Sterling, II 
Conte, Darwin, and Robert Barker, 1 " who was up from Northampton 
on leave of absence. Do you shriek at the idea of all this? You 
need not. We all talked through other 11 (except Barker, who, by 
preserving uninterrupted silence, passed for some very wise man); 
and we were till happy in the consciousness of doing each our part 
to 'stave off' ennui, though it were by nothing better than non- 
sense. The next was a more rational piece of work; but more 
•insipid'. 1 " Mrs. Rich, 13 and her two sisters, the Marshalls, Mrs. 

■ Our name for a post-letter iu those days. ' Send him a threepenny, then.' 
2 Converse of Goody. 

3 There was a piper had a e..« . 
And he had noellt to give her; 
He took ins pipes, and played a spring, 
And bade the cow consider. 

The cow considered wi' hersel' 
That mirth [sportful music] wad ne'er fill her: 
' Gie me a pickle pease-strae. 
And sell your wind for siller.' 
Old Scotch rhyme, reckoned -pawky,' clever and symbolical, in this house. 
Gloire! donnez-moi du pain! . 

« Next-door neighbour this Dr. M., faithful but headlong and fanatical. 
His wife was from Edinburgh, a kind of 'Haddington Wilkie ' withal; died 
not long after. Dr. M., unsuccessful otherwise, then volunteered upon some 
Philo-Nigger Expedition— scandalously sanctioned by a Government in need 
of votes, though he considered it absurd— and did die, like the others, a- few 
days after reaching the poisonous, swampy river they were sent to navigate. 
» Rigorous navy lieutenant: 'Why, Richard, you're drunk!' 'I've ad my 
allowance, sir, and it's took an effect on me,' answered Richard (Richard Kee- 
vil, a wandering, innocent creature from the Gloucester cloth countries lat- 
terly, who came to my father's in a starving state, and managed gently to stay 
five or six months— a 'favourite, and study, with us .younger ones). 
6 ' Mamma, wine makes cosy.' Retniniseences. p. SI- Harper's Edition. 
' Helen was a new maid, of whom more hereafter. 

8 Brother James's name for a humble gig, or the like. To clatch is to 
drag lumberingly. 
8 Scotch peasant's term for such phenomena. 

10 Amiable Nithsdale gentleman, a lieutenant of foot, who had seen service, 
nearly killed at New Orleans, &c. 
" German, dureh einander. la Servant Helen's term. 

1 3 Daughter of Sir James Mackintosh ; among other elderly religious ladies, 
was a chief admirer of Rev. A. Scott, now nestled silently at Plumstead (died 
I recently professor in Owens College, Manchester). 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



17 



Sterling, andiUhe always to be got Darwin. We talked about the 
condition of- the poor, &c, &c, one at a time; and I am sure the 
saints think that, all this while, my light has been hid under a 
bushel — that, in fact, they have 'discovered me.' They kissed me 
all over, when tbey went away, and would have me out to Plum- 
stead Common. Then I had Mr. C one night, to whom I prated 

so cleverly about domestic service, and all that, that his eyes 
twinkled the purest admiration, through his spectacles; and, two 

days after, he returned with Mrs. C ! to hear me again on the 

same topics. But catch me flinging my pearls before swine! But, 
oh, dear me, dearest, how the paper is getting covered over with 
absolute nothings; and I have realty something to tell. 

I have to tell you one very wonderful thing indeed, which 
brought a sort of tears into my eyes. The first money from F» It." 
is come to hand, in the shape of a bill of exchange for fifty pounds, 
inclosed in a short business letter from Emerson. He says: 'An 
account has been rendered to me, which, though its present bal- 
ance is in our favour, is less than I expected; yet, as far as I under- 
stand, it agrees well with all that has been promised. At least, the 
balance in our favour, when the edition is sold, which the bookscl 
lers assure me will undoubtedly be done within a year from the 
publication, must be 760 dollars, and whatever more Heaven and 
the subscribers may grant.' You are to know, dear, fifty pounds is 
exactly $224.22, the rate of exchange being 9 percent. He says 
nothing more, except that he will send a duplicate of the bill by 
next packet; and that 'the Miscellanies is published in two vol- 
umes, a copy of which goes to you immediately; 250 copies are 
already sold.' So you see, dear, here is Fortune actually smiling 
on you over the seas, with her lap full of dollars. Pray you, don't 
you be bashful; but smile on her in return. Another bit of good 
luck lies in the shape of a little hamper, full of Madeira, the Cal- 
vert wine — I have not unpacked it yet; but I guess it holds a dozen. 
I too am to have some wine given me. John Sterling has desired 
his wine merchant, on receiving a certain basketful of Malmsey 
from Madeira for him, to send some fraction of it to me. 

He himself, John Sterling, you will be surprised to hear, is off 
this day for good. He spends a week in settling bis family at Hast- 
ings, and then proceeds to Italy. Such is the order of Sir James 
Clark, and his own whim! He breakfasted with me this morning, 
to take leave; apparently in perfect health, and almost too good 
spirits, I think. I told him, he seemed to me a man who had a dia- 
mond given him to keep, which he was in danger of breaking all 
down into sparks, that everyone might have a breastpin of it. He 
looked as Edward Irving used to do. I do not think that, morally, 
he is at all in a good way — too much of virtue ' and all that ' on the 
lips. Woe to him if he fall into the net of any beautiful Italian! 
People who are so dreadfully 'devoted' to their wives are so apt, 
from mere habit, to get devoted to other people's wives as well! 

Except Emerson's, there have been .no letters for you; and of 
threepennies, only one of apology from Wilson, along with that 
Globe; and one from your namesake,' 2 wanting letters to ' Germany, 
with which he wants to acquaint himself — or rather, in the lan- 
guage of truth, where he is going as a missiouary (so Dr. Marshall 
tells me). I answered it politely. 

I must not conclude without telling you a most surprising pur- 
pose 1 have in my head, which, if you have heard of O'Connell's 
late visit to a La Trappean Monastery, you will not be quite in- 
credulous of. I am actually meditating to spend a week with — 
Miss Wilson at Ramsgate! ! To do penance for all the nonsense I 
speak, by dooming myself, for one whole week, to speak nothing 
but real sense, and no mistake! She wrote me the most cordial 
invitation, and not to me only, but to Helen, whom she knew I did 
not like to leave; for three weeks I was to come. I answered in a 
long letter, which you would have liked amazingly, if you had had 
the good luck to hear it, that when I heard from John, 3 if there was 
time before his arrival, I would absolutely accept. I have had 
another letter from her since, gracious beyond expression; and am 
really meaning to lock up, and go with Helen for a week, if John 
does not come all the sooner. Address to me always here, how- 
ever; as Dr. Marshall will send on my letters instanter. They are 
touchingly kind to me, these good Marshalls; — got upadinnerchen, 
&c., &c. Everybody is kind to me. Only I have put the Stima- 
bile in a great tuff — purposely, that I might not have him dangling 
here in your absence. Thus it is impossible for me to get a frank. 
But you will not grudge postage, even for this worthless letter, 
since it is mine. 

I have not heard from my mother, nor written to her yet, so I 
know not where she is. I have forgot a thousand things. Madame 
Marcet has not been yet; — is to come, 4 — a friend from Paris has de- 
prived her of the pleasure, &c. Cavaignac was here last Friday. 
Edgeworth has been; wanted me out to Windsor. The blockhead 
Hume 5 came to tea one night! No Americans! No strangers! 
Darwin is going off to the Wedgewoods with Mrs. Rich. Thank 
you for the particulars to Helen. Yes, try and see her mother. 
She is very kind to me. Get very very well; and come back so 
good ! and so pooty. 



1 French Revolution. 

3 Angel, at Albury, editor of the Globe newspaper. 

3 John Carlyle, then expected in London. 

1 Never did, I think. • Ambitious thickhead. 



Say all that is kind and grateful from me to the good Ferguses. 
And tell Elizabeth I will write her a long letter one of these days 
— to be also in no sorrow about Pepoli. He is merely lackadaisical. 
God bless you, dearest. Do not, I beseech you, soil your mind 
with a thought of postage; but write again quick. Be sure you go 
to Minto. ' J. W. C. 

LETTER 21. 

To T. Carlyle, Esq. , Scotsbng. 

Chelsea: Sunday, Sept. 10, 1838. 

Thou precious cheap! — I am rejoiced to find you working out 
your plan so strenuously and steadily. That is really one kind of 
virtue which does seem to me always its own reward. To have 
done the thing one meant to do, let it turn out as it may, ' is a 
good joy.' 2 You will come home to me 'more than plumb,' with 
conscious manhood, after having reaped such a harvest of ' realised 
ideals.' 

For me, I am purposely living without purpose, from hand to 
mouth, as it were, taking the good the gods provide me, and, as 
much as possible, shirking the evil — a manner of existence which 
seems to suit my constitution very well, for I have not had a single 
headache these three weeks, nor any bodily ailment, except occa- 
sional touches of that preternatural intensity of sensation, which, 
if one did not know it to be the consequence of sleeplessness, 
would pass for perfection of health rather than ailment; and which 
I study to keep down with such dullifying appliances as offer them- 
selves, in dearth of 'a considerable bulk of porridge.' The people 
are very attentive to me — almost too attentive; for they make me 
talk more than is for the good of my soul, and go through 
a power of my tea and bread and butter! Nay, Cavaignac 
was found sitting yesterday when I came home from my drive, and 
said, with all the cold-bloodedness imaginable, ' Youlez-vous me 
donnerr d diner, madame?'—a.n astounding question to a woman 
whose whole earthly prospects in the way of dinner were bounded 
there and then to one fried sole and two pommes de terre ! And 
when this sumptuous repast was placed on the table, with the addi- 
tion of a spoonful of improvised hash, he sat down to it exclaim- 
ing, d plusieurs reprises : ' Mon Dieu, comme faifaim, moi! ' How- 
ever, as Helen remarked, ' It's nae matter what ye gie him; for he 
can aye mak the bread flee ! ' 

Our first two volumes of the 'Miscellanies' are published. I 
have sent you a copy. The edition consists of 1,000 copies; of 
these 500 are bound, 500 remain in sheets. The title-pages, of 
course, are all printed alike; but the publishers assure me that new 
title-pages can be struck off at a trifling expense, with the imprint 
of Saunders and Otley, The cost of a copy in sheets or ' folded' 
is 89 cents, and bound is $1.15 cents. The retail price is $2.50 
cents a copy, and the author's profit is $1.00, and the bookseller's 
35 cents per copy, according to my understanding of the written 
contract. (All of which I have written off with faith and hope, 
but with infinite ennui, not understanding any more of cents than 
of hieroglyphics.) I think there is no doubt but the book will sell 
very well there; but if, for the reasons you suggest, you wish any 
part of it, you can have it as soon as ships ^;an bring your will. 
We have printed half the matter. I should presently begin to 
print the remainder, inclusive of the article on Scott in two more 
volumes; but now I think I shall wait until I hear from you. Of 
those books we will print a larger edition, say 1,250 or 1,500, if you 
want a part of it in London; for I feel confident now that our pub- 
lic is a thousand strong. Write me, therefore, by the steam-packet 
your wishes. So you can ' consider,' cheap! 3 and be prepared to 
answer the letter when I send it in a day or two in the lump. 

For my part, I think I should vote for letting these good Ameri- 
cans keep their own wares; they Seem to have an art, unknown in 
our island, of getting them disposed of. I can say nothing of how 
'Sartor ' 4 poor beast! is going on, only that people tell me, with 
provoking vagueness, from time to time, that they have read or 
heard honourable mention of it; but where,' or when, or to what 
possible purport, they seem bound over by oath to be quite silent 
upon. Mrs. Buller, for example, the other day when I called at 
her house, said that she was glad to find it succeeding. 'Was it 
succeeding? ' I asked, for I really was quite ignorant. Oh, she had 
heard and seen the most honourable notice of it. The individual 
most agog about it seems to be the young Catholic, whose name, I 
now inform and beg you to remember, is Mr. T. Chisholm Anstey. 
He sat with me one forenoon, last week, for a whole hour and a half, 
rhapsodising about you all the while; a most judicious young 
Catholic, as I ever saw or dreamt of. He had been ' in retreat,' as 
they call it. for three weeks — that is to say, in some Jesuit La 
Trappe establishment in the north of England — absolutely silent, 
which he was sure you would be glad to hear; and he is going 
back at Christmas to hold his peace for three weeks more! He has 
written an article on you for the 'Dublin Review,' which is to be 
sent to me as soon as published, and the Jesuits, he says, are en- 
chanted with all they find in you. Your ' opinions about sacrifice, 



1 To the manse there (reverend couple being old acquaintances of both 
of us). I 
3 One of Leigh Hunt's children, on the sight of flowers. 
3 Converse of 'dear.' * Lately republished from Fraser's Magazine. 



18 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLTLE. 



&c, &c, are entirely conformable to theirs!' 'After all,' said 
Darwin the other day, ' what the deuce is Carlyle's religion, or has 
he any? ' I shook my head, and assuerd him 1 knew no more than 
himself. I told Mr. Chisholm Austey 1 could not give him the 
lecture-book, as I was copying it. ' You copying it! 'he exclaimed 
in enthusiasm; 'indeed you shall not have that toil; I will copy it 
for you; it will be a pleasure tome to write them all a second 
time! ' So you may give lilm the ten shillings; for he actually took 
away the book, and what I had done of it, par vive force/ I wish 
some other of your admirers would carry off the bed-curtains by 
Vive force, and finish them also; for. though I have had a sempstress 
helping me for three days, they are still in hand. Perhaps a Swe- 
denborgian will do that? 

Baron von Alsdorf came here the other night, seeking your ad- 
dress, to write to you for a testimonial. ' Such is the lot of celeb- 
rity i' the world.' 1 Oh! my 'Revolution' and 'Sartor' are come 
home, such loves of books! quite beautiful; but such a price! seven 
shillings per volume! for half-binding! ' Was there ever anything 
in the least like it?' 3 The Fraserian functionary seemed almost 
frightened to tell me; but seeing I could make nothing of debating 
about it, I contented myself with saying: 'Well, "French Revolu 
tions" are not written every day, and the outside should be some- 
thing worthy of the in.' The man. apparently struck with admira- 
tion of my sincerity and contempt of money, bowed involuntarily, 
and said, 'It is indeed a book that cannot have too much expense 
put upon it.' ' Why the deuce, then,' I was tempted to answer, ' don't 
you give us something for it?' The 'German Romance ' is to be 
done in calf at 3s. 6d. a volume. Do not trouble your head about 
my investing so much capital in the binding of these books. With 
such a prospect of cents, it were sheer parsimony not to give them 
a good dress. I have unpacked your wine, and even tasted it; and 
lo! it proves to be two dozen pint bottles of exquisite port! which 
disagrees with you. Did you not understand it was to have been 
Madeira? My Malmsey is not come yet. How I laughed, and 
how Cavaiguac shouted at your encounter with Mrs. 'ickson.' 3 In- 
deed, your whole letter was most entertaining and satisfactory. Do 
not be long in sending me another; they are very refreshing, espe- 
cially when the}' praise me! 4 This is not so good ' a return ' as I 
could wish to make you; but in a single sheet one is obliged lo 
manger all superfluous details, though these are more interesting to 
the absent than more important matter. Robertson called on me 
the other day, wondering if you were writing anything for him. 
He has had a splutter with Leigh Hunt — always spluttering. He 
talked much of Harriet's ' tail of hundreds' at Newcastle' till I 
could not help fancying her as one of those sheep Herodotus tells 
about. I wonder how many things I have forgotten? Kind re- 
gards to them all. and to yourself what you can say of most affec- 
tionate. I drive almost every day. Elizabeth's letter is not come 
yet; but I will write forthwith whether or no. 

Your unfortunate 

Goody. 

LETTER 23. 

A postscript at almost half a year's distance. These are the lee 
ture years, 1837-40; this year's "lecture (for it is 'April 12') would 
be within three weeks. ' 

' First rush o' ye tea,' intelligible now only to myself, was at that 
time full of mirth, ingenuity, and humour m the quarter it was 
going to! My mother, many }'ears before, on the eve of an Eccle- 
fechan Fair, happened in the gloaming to pass one Martha Calvert's 
door, a queer old cripple creature who used to lodge vagrants, beg- 
gars, ballad-singers, snap- women, &c, such as were wont, copi- 
ously enough (chiefly from the 'Brig-end of Dumfries'), to visit 
us on these occasions. Two beggar-women were pleasantly chat- 
ting, or taking sweet counsel, outside in the quiet summer dusk, 
when a third started out, eagerly friendly, 'Come awa', haste; t' 
ye first rush o' ye tea! ' (general tea inside, just beginning, first rush 
of it far superior to third or fourth!) 

' God's Providence.' Peg Ir'rin (Irving a memorable old bread- 
and-ale woman, extensively prepared to vend these articles at Mid 
dlebie Sacrament) could not by entreaty or logic (her husband had 
fought at Bunker's Hill) extort from the parish official (ruling 
elder) liberty to use the vacant school-house for that purpose, 
whereupon Peg, with a toss of her foolish high head (a loud, 
absurd, empty woman, though an empty especially of any mis- 
chief), 'Ah well; thou canna cut me out of God's Providence.' — 
T. C. 

To Mrs. Carlyle, Scotsbrig, Ecclcfechan. 

April 12, 1839. 
My dear Mother, — It were much pleasanter to write to you if, 
besides white paper, he would leave me something to say. But 
away he goes, skimming over everything, whipping off the cream 
of everything, and leaves me nothing but the blue milk to make 
you a feast of. The much best plan for me were to take the start 
of him, and have the ' first rush o' ye tea 'to myself; as I positively 
design to do in lecture time, when there will be something worth 
while to tell. 

1 Parodied from Schiller. 3 Common phrase of her mother's. 

3 Hickson. suddenly in Princes Street, Edinburgh, poor woman I 
* Vide Cicero. 6 Scientific meeting. 



We see Jeffrey often since he came to London, and he is very 
friendly still, ' though he could not cut us out of God's Provi- 
dence.' We had a Roman Catholic Frenchman ' flying about us, at 
a prodigious rate, last week, but he has left London for tlie present. 
He told us all about how he went to confession. &c, &c, and how 
he had been demoralised at one period, and was recovered by the 
spectacle of a holy procession. He seems a very excellent man in 
his own way, but one cannot quite enter into his ecstasies about 
white shirts and wax tapers, and all that sort of thing. I hope you 
are all well, and thinking of me, as heretofore, with kindness; this 
is cruel weather for Isabella and you and me. 

Ever affectionately yours, 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 23. 
To Mrs. Carlyle, Scotsbrig, Ecclcfechan. 

Chelsea: May 6, 1839. 

My dear Mother, — Our second lecture ' transpired ' yesterday, 
and with surprising success — literally surprising — for he was im- 
puting the profound attention with which the audience listened, to 
an awful sympathising expectation on their part of a momentary 
break-down, when all at once they broke into loud plaudits, and he 
thought they must all have gone clean out of their wits! But, as 
does not happen always, the majority were in this instance in the 
right, and it was he that was out of his wits to fancy himself mak- 
ing a stupid lecture, when the fact is he really cannot be stupid if 
it were to save his life. The short and long of it was, he had neg- 
lected to take a pill the day before, had neglected to get himself a 
ride, and was out of spirits at the beginning: even I, who consider 
myself an unprejudiced judge, did not think he was talking his 
best, or anything like his best; the 'splendids,' 'devilish fines,' 
'most trues,' and all that, which I heard heartily ejaculated on all 
sides, showed that it was a sort of mercy in him to come with 
bowels in a state of derangement, since, if his faculties had had 
full play, the people must have been all sent home in a state of ex- 
citement bordering on frenzy. The most practical good feature in 
the business was a considerable increase of hearers — even since last 
day; the audience seems to me much larger than last year, and 
even more distinguished. The whole street was blocked up with 
' fine yellow ' (and all other imaginable coloured) ' deliveries;' 5 and 
this is more than merely a dangerous flattery to one's vanity, the 
fashionable people here being (unlike our Scotch gigmen and gig- 
women), the most open to light (above all to his light) of any sorts 
of people one has to do with. Even John Knox, though they must 
have been very angry at him for demolishing so much beautiful 
architecture, which is quite a passion with the English, they were 
quite willing to let good be said of. so that it were indisputably 
true. Nay, it was in reference to Knox that they first applauded 
yesterday. Perhaps his being a countryman of their favourite 
lecturer's might have something to do with it! But we will hope 
better things, though we thus speak. 3 

You will find nothing about us in the Examiner of this week; 
Leigh Hunt, who writes the notices there, did not arrive at the first 
lecture in time to make any report of it, having come in an omni- 
bus which took it in its head to run a race with another omnibus, 
after a rather novel fashion, that is to say, each trying which should 
be hindmost. We go to lecture this year very commodiously in 
what is called a fly (a little chaise with one horse), furnished us 
from a livery-stable hard by, at a very moderate rate. Yesterday 
the woman who keeps these stables sent us a flunkey more than 
bargain, in consideration that I was ' such a very nice lady ' — show- 
ing therein a spirit above slavery and even above livery. Indeed, 
as a foolish old woman at Dumfries used to say, ' everybody is kind 
to me; ' and I take their kindness and am grateful for it, without 
inquiring too closely into their motives. Perhaps I am a genius 
too, as well as my husband? Indeed, I really begin to think so — 
especially since yesterday that I wrote down a parrot! which was 
driving us quite desperate with its screeching. Some new neigh- 
bours, that came a mouth or two ago, brought with them an ac- 
cumulation of all the things to be guarded against in a London 
neighbourhood, viz. , a pianoforte, a lap-dog, and a parrot. The two 
first can be borne with, as they carry on the glory within doors; 
but the parrot, since the fine weather, has been holding forth in the 
garden under our open windows. Yesterday it was more than 
usually obstreperous — so that Carlyle at last fairly sprang to his 
feet, declaring lie could 'neither think nor live.' Now it was ab- 
solutely necessary that he should do both. So forthwith, on the 
inspiration of conjugal sympathy, I wrote a note to the parrot's 
mistress (name unknown), and in five minutes after Pretty Polly 
was carried within, and is now screeching from some subterranean 
depth whence she is hardly audible. Now if you will please recol- 
lect that, at Comely Bank, I also wrote down an old maid's house- 
dog, and an only son's pet bantam-cock, 4 you will admit, I think, 
that my writings have not been in vain. 

1 A. M. Rio, once very current in London society; vanished now many 
years ago. 

2 ' Fine yaltow deliveries and a' ! ' exclaimed a goosey maid-servant at Main- 
hilt, seeing a carriage pass in the distance once (in little Craw Jean's hearing). 

3 Common preachers' phrase in Scotland. 

* True instances both ; the first of many hundreds, which lasted till the very 
end. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE "WELSH CARLYLE. 



19 



We have been very comfortable in our household this long while. 
My little Fiffeshire maid grows always the longer the better; and 
never seerns to have a thought of leaving us, any more than we 
have of parting with her. My kindest love to all the ' great na- 
tion' into which you are grown. 

Affectionately yours, 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 24. 

Lectures finished, with again a hint of notice. This was not my 
last course of lectures; but I infinitely dislike the operation — ' a 
mixture of prophecy and play-acting.' in which I could not adjust 
myself at all, and deeply longed to see the end of. — T. C. 

To Mrs. Carlyle, Scotsbrig, Ecelefechan. 
v •• Chelsea: May 20, 1839. 

My dear Mother, — The last lecture was indeed the most splendid 
he ever delivered, and the people were all in a heart-fever over it; 
on all sides of me people who did not know me, and might there- 
fore be believed, were expressing their raptures audibly. One man 
(a person of originally large fortune, which he got through in an 
uncommon way, namely, in acts of benevolence) was saying, ' He's 
a glorious fellow; I love the fellow's very faults,' &c, &c. ; while 
another answered, 'Aye, faith, is he; a fine, wild, chaotic, noble 
chap,' and so on over the whole room. In short we left the con- 
cern in a sort of whirlwind of ' glory ' not without ' bread '; one of 
the dashing facts of the day being a Queen's carriage at the door, 
which had come with some of the household. Another thing I 
noticed, of a counter tendency to one's vanity, was poor Mrs. 
Edward Irving sitting opposite me, in her weeds, with sorrowful 
heart enough, I dare say. And when I thought of her lot and all 
the things that must be passing through her heart, to see her hus- 
band's old friend there, carrying on the glory in his turn, while 
hers — What was it all come to! She seemed to me set there ex- 
pressly to keep me in mind ' that I was but a woman;' 1 like the 
skeleton which the old Egyptians placed at table, in their feasts, to 
be a memorial of their latter end. 

My love to them all — and surely I will write a long letter to Jane 
before long; who is very foolish to imagine I ever had, or could 
have, any reason for silence towards her, other than my natural 
dislike to letter-writing. 

Ever your affectionate 

Jane Carltle. 

'After lectures,' Carlyle writes, -'and considerable reading for 
" Cromwell," talking about scheme of London library, struggling 
and concocting towards what proved " Chartism," and more of the 
like, we set out together for Scotland by Liverpool about July 2 or 
3, for Scotsbrig both of us in the first place, then she to Templand 
as headquarters, and, after leaving here, then to return to Scots- 
brig, all which took effect, my remembrance of it now very indis- 
tinct.' 

While absent from him, Mrs. Carlyle paid a visit to Ayr. As 
she was returning in the coach, Carlyle says in a note: ' a fellow- 
passenger got talking — "So you are from London, ma'am, and 
know literary people? Leigh Hunt? ah, so," &c. , "and do you 
know anything of Thomas Carlyle?" "Him; right well — I am his 
wife," which had evidently pleased her little heart.' 

The winter which followed, she had a violent chronic cold, sad 
accompaniment of many winters thenceforth, fiercely torturing 
nervous headache, continuous sometimes for three days and nights. 
' Never,' says her husband, ' did I see such suffering from ill-health 
borne so patiently as by this most sensitive of delicate creatures all 
her life long.' 

She had an extraordinary power of attaching to her everyone 
with whom she came in contact. In a letter to her sister-in-law, 
Mrs. Aitken, written in the midst of her illness, she says: 'My 
maid 2 is very kind when I am laid up; she has no suggestions or 
voluntary help in her, but she does my bidding quietly and accu- 
rately, and when I am very bad she bends over me in my bed as if 
I were a little child, and rubs her cheek on mine — once I found it 
wet with tears — one might think one's maid's tears could do little 
for a tearing headache, but they do comfort a little.' 

During this suffering time she wrote little and briefly. Carlyle 
was preparing his last course of lectures, the six on Heroes and 
Hero Worship, which were delivered in the coming season. He 
had a horse now. which had been presented to him by Mr. Mar- 
shall, of Leeds. The riding improved his spirits, but his nerves 
were always in a state of irritation when he was writing. ' Why 
do women marry?' she says in a little note to John Forster; ' God 
knows, unless it be that, like the great Wallenstein, they do not 
find scope enough for their genius and qualities in an easy life. 

Night it must be, ere Friedland's star shall burn ! ' 



1 The Corporate Weavers at Dumfries elected a deacon, or chief of weavers, 
who was excessively nattered by the honour. In the course of the installa- 
tion dinner, at some high point of the hep-hep hurrahing, he exclaimed, with 
sweet pain, ' Oh, gentlemen, remember I am but a man ! '— T.^C. Mrs. Carlyle 
tells the story of a Bailie at Annan, see p. 16. — J. A. F. 

2 Kirkcaldy Helen, one of the notabilities, and also blessings, of our exist- 
ence here.— T. C. 



In the summer matters were made worse by what to him was a 
most serious trial, described in the letter which follows. He 
asked Charles Buller if there were no means by which he could be 
extricated. Buller said he knew of but one. 'He could register 
himself as a Dissenting preacher.' — J. A. F. 

LETTER 25. 

This 'trial by jury' was a Manchester case of patents: patent 
first, for an improvement on cotton-wool carding machines; patent 
second, an imitation of that, query theft of it or not? Trial fell in 
two terms (same unfortunate jury), and lasted three or four days in 
each. Madder thing I never saw ; — clear to myself in the first half- 
hour ('essential theft '), no advocate doing the least good to it far- 
ther, doing harm rather; — and trial costing in money, they said, 
l.OOW. a day. Recalcitrant juryman (one of the ' Tales ' sort), stu- 
pidest-looking fellow I ever saw — it was I that coaxed him round 
and saved a new trial at 1,0001. a day. Intolerable suffering, rage, 
almost despair (and resolution to quit London), were, on my part, 
the consequence of these jury-summonses, which, after this, hap- 
pened to abate or almost cease. On hers, corresponding pity, and 
at length no end of amusement over my adventure with that stu- 
pidest of jurymen, &c., which she used to narrate in an incompar- 
able manner. Ah me! Ah me! 

' Poor fellow, after all! ' was very often finish of my brother in 
summing up his censures of men — so often that we had grown to 
expect it, and banter it. — T. C. 

To the Reverend John Sterling, Clifton. 

Chelsea: Oct. 5, 1840. 

My dear John 'after all,' — In God's name, be 'a hurdy-gurdy,' 
or whatever else you like! You are a good man, anyhow, and there 
needs not your ' dying ' to make me know this at the bottom of my 
heart, and love you accordingly. No, my excellent Sir, you are a 
blessing which one knows the value of even before one has lost it. 
And it is just because I love you better than most people that I 
persecute you as I do; that I flare up when you touch a hair of my 
head (I mean my moral head). So now we are friends again, are 
we not? If, indeed, through all our mutual impertinences, we 
have ever been anything else! 

You see, I am very lamb-like to-day; indeed, I could neither 
'quiz,' nor be 'polite' to you to-day for the whole world. The 
fact is, I also have had a fit of illness, which has softened my 
mood, even as yours has been softened by the same cause. These 
fits of illness are not without their good uses, for us people of too 
poetic temperaments. For my part, I find them what the touching 
of their mother earth was for the giants of old. I arise from them 
with new heart in me for the battle of existence; and you know, 
or ought to know, what a woman means by new heart — not new 
brute force, as you men understand by it, but new power of loving 
and enduring. 

We have been in really a rather deplorable plight here for a good 
while back, ever since a certain trial about a patent, so strangely 
are things linked together in this remarkable world! My poor man 
of genius had to sit on a jury two days, to the ruin of his whole 
being, physical, moral, and intellectual. And ever since, he has 
been reacting against the administration of British justice, to a de- 
gree that has finally mounted into influenza While I, poverina, 
have been reacting against his reaction, (ill that malady called by the 
cockneys 'mental worry' fairly took me by the throat, and threw 
me on my bed for a good many days. And now I am but recov- 
ering, as white as the paper I write upon, and carrying my bead as 
one who had been making a failed attempt at suicide; for, in the 
ardour of my medical practice, I flayed the whole neck of me with 
a blister. So you see it is a good proof of affection that I here give 
you, in writing thus speedily, and so long a note. 

God bless you, dear John, and all belonging to you. With all 
my imperfections, believe me ever faithfully and affectionately, 

Yours, 

Jane Carlyle. 

No lectures to be this spring, or evermore, God willing. 

LETTER 26. 

Impossible to date with accuracy; the poor incident I recollect 
well in all its details, but not the point of time. ' Helen ' Mitchell, 
from Kirkcaldy (originally from Edinburgh), must have come 
about the end of 1837; she stayed with us (thanks to the boundless 
skill and patience of her mistress) about eleven years; and was, in 
a sense, the only servant we ever got to belong to us, and be one of 
our household, in this place. She hail been in Rotterdam before, 
and found Cheyne Walk to resemble the Boompjes there (which it 
does). Arrived here, by cab, in a wet blustery night, which I re- 
member; seemed to have cared no more about the roar and tumult 
of huge London all the way from St. Kalherine's Dorks hither, than 
a clucking hen would have done, sitting safe in its hand-basket, 
and looking unconcerned to right and left. A very curious little 
being; mixture of shrewdness, accurate observancy, flashes of an 
insight almost genial, with utter simplicity and even folly. A sin- 
gular humble loyalty and genuine attachment to her mistress never 



20 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



failed in poor Helen as the chief redeeming virtues. Endless was 
her mistress's amusement (among other feelings) with the talk and 
ways of this poor Helen ; which as reported to me, in their native 
dialect and manner, with that perfect skill, sportfuluess, and lov- 
ing grace of imitation, were to me also among the most amusing 
things I ever heard. E.g. her criticism of Arthur Helps's book 
(for Helen was a great reader, when she could snatch a bit of time); 
criticism of Miss Martineau's (highly didactic) ' Maid of All Work' 
— and ' a rail insipid trick in Darwin to tell Mis^ Martno! ' &c. &c. 
Poor Helen, well does she deserve this hit of record from me. 
Her end was sail, and like a thing of fate; as perhaps will be no- 
ticed farther on. 

This letter 1 vaguely incline to date about autumn 1840, though 
sure evidence is quite wanting. 

' Toam tuik ta hint.' Our little Craw Jean had a long, inane, 
comically solemn dialogue to report of an excellent simple old 
Mrs. Clough (brother Alick's mother-in-law); of which this about. 
' Toam ' (her own Tom) was a kind of cardinal point or (solemnly 
inane) corner-stone. 

' Stream of time ' &c, ' Oh Lord, we're a' sailing down the stream 
of time into the ocean of eternity: for Christ's sake: Amen,' was 
the Grace before meat (according to myth) of some extempore 
Christian suddenly called on, and at a loss for words. 

To Mrs. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea: Autumn, 1840. 
Dear Mother,— I make no excuse for being so long in complying 
with your often-repeated hint that I should write to you; it is for 
the like of ' Tom ' to ' take the hint;' but for me, your highly origi- 
nal daughter-in-law, I am far beyond hints, or even direct com- 
mands in the matter of letter-writing. I have now, in fact, no 
character to lose, and make myself quite comfortable in the reflec- 
tion that, far from feeling any indignant surprise at my silence, my 
friends will henceforth receive auy communication I may vouch- 
safe them in the course of years as an unexpected favour for 
which they cannot be too thankful. What do I do with my time, 
you wonder? With such ' a right easy seat of it,' one might fancy. 
I should be glad to write a letter now and then, just to keep the 
devil from my elbow. But Alick's Jenny and all of you were 
never more mistaken than when you imagine a woman needs half- 
a-dozen children to keep her uneasy in a hundred ways without 
that. For my part. I am always as busy as possible; on that side 
at least I hold out no encouragement to the devil; and yet, suppose 
you were to look through a microscope, you might be puzzled to 
discover a trace of what I do. Nevertheless, depend upon it, my 
doings are not lost; but, invisible to human eyes, they ' sail down 
the stream of time into the ocean of eternity,' and who knows but 
I may find them after many days? 

At present, I have got a rather heavy burden on my shoulders, 
the guarding of a human being from the perdition of strong liquors. 
My poor lit Tie Helen has been gradually getting more and more into 
the habit of tippling, until, some fortnight ago, she rushed down 
into a fit of the most decided drunkenness that I ever happened to 
witness. Figure the head of the mystic school, aud a delicate fe- 
male like myself, up till after three in the morning, trying to get 
the maddened creature to bed; not daring to leave her at large for 
fear she should set fire to the house or cut her own throat. Finally 
we got her bolted into the back kitchen, in a corner of which she 
had established herself all coiled up and fulling like a young tiger 
about to spring, or like the Bride of Lammermoor (if you ever 
heard of that profane book). Next day she looked black with 
shame and despair; aud the next following, overcome by her tears 
and promises and self-upbraidings, I forgave her again, very much 
to my own surprise. About half an hour after this forgiveness 
had been accorded, I called her to make me some batter; it was 
long of coming, aud I rang the bell; no answer. I went down to 
the kitchen, to see the meaning of all this delay, and the meaning 
was very clear, my penitent was lying on the floor, dead-drunk, 
spread out like the three legs of Man, 1 with a chair upset beside 
her, and in the midst of a perfect chaos of dirty dishes and frag- 
ments of broken crockery; the whole scene was a lively epitome of 
a place that, shall be nameless. And this happened at ten in the 
morning! All that day she remained lying on the floor insensible, 
or occasionally sitting up like a little bundle of dirt, executing a 
sort of whinner; we could not imagine how she came to be so long 
in sobering; but it turned out she had a whole bottle of whisky 
hidden within reach, to which she crawled till it was finished 
throughout the day. 

After this, of course, I was determined that she should leave. 
My friends here set to work with all zeal to find me a servant; and 
a very promising young woman came to stay with me till a perma- 
nent character should turn up. This last scene ' transpired ' on the 
Wednesday; on the Monday she was to sail for Kirkcaldy. All 
the intervening days, I held out against her pale face, her tears, 
her despair; but I suffered terribly, for I am really much attached 
to the poor wretch, who has no fault under heaven but this one. 
On the Sunday night I called her up to pay her her wages, and to 
inquire into her future prospects. Her future prospects! it was 
enough to break anybody's heart to hear how she talked of them. 



1 See any Manx halfpenny, common similitude on those coasts. 



It was all over for her on this earth, plainly, if I drove her away 
from me who alone have any influence with her. Beside me, she 
would struggle; away from me. she saw no possibility of resisting 
what she had come to regard as her fate. You may guess the se- 
quel : I forgave her a third time, and a last time. I could not deny 
her this one more chance. The creature is so good otherwise. 
Since then she has abstained from drink, I believe in ever}' shape, 
finding abstinence, like old Samuel Johnson, easier than temper- 
ance; but how long she may be strong enough to persevere in this 
rigid course, in which lies her only hope, God knows. I am not 
very sanguine; meanwhile I feel as if I had adopted a child, I find 
it necessary to take such an incessant charge of her, bodily and 
mentally; and my own body aud soul generally keep me in work 
enough, without auy such additional responsibility. 

Carlyle is reading voraciously, great folios, preparatory to writ- 
ing a new book. For the rest, he growls aiviiy much iu the old 
style; but one gets to feel a certain indifference to his growling; if 
one did not. it would be the worse for one. I think he committed 
a great error in sending away his horse; it distinctly did him good; 
and would have done him much more good if he could have 
'damned the expense.' Even in an economical point of view, he 
would have gained more in the long run by increased ability to 
work than he spent in making himself healthier; but a wilful man 
will have his way. 

My kind love to Isabella, and all of them; I hope she is stronger 
now — it was all she seemed to want, to be a first-rate wife. I never 
forgot her kindness to me last year; though I do not write to her 
any more than to others. 

Affectionately yours, 

Jake W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 27. 
To Mrs. Stirling,* Cottage, Dundee. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Jan. 8, 1841. 

My dear Susan, — I always thought you a woman of admira- 
ble good sense; and I rejoice to see that marriage has not spoiled 
you. This speaks well for your husband too; for I defy any wo- 
man, unless she be no better than a stone, to hinder herself from 
taking something of the colour of the man she lives beside all days 
of the year. We women are naturally so impressible, so imita- 
tive! the more shame to men if we have all the failings they charge 
us with! Our very self-will, I believe, which they make such a fuss 
about, is, after all, only a reflex of their own! I find in your letter 
no less than three several proofs of this admirable good sense; first, 
you love me the same as ever— that is highly sensible in you; sec- 
ondly, you improve in admiration of my husband's writings — that 
also is highly sensible; thirdly, you understand that my silence 
means nothing but — that I am silent, and that (to use my mother's 
favourite phrase) is sensible to ' a degree.' Indeed, if my silence is 
indicative of anything at all, dear Susan, it indicates more trust in 
your steady sentiments of kindness towards me than I have iu the 
generality of people who profess to love me best. If I thought that 
you imagined me forgetful, when I am only not making periodical 
affirmations of my remembrance of you, and that you were to cast 
me out of your remembrance in consequence, I would write cer- 
tainly — would conquer my growing repugnance to letter-writing, 
rather than risk the loss of your affection; but I should not feel so 
grateful to you as now, with the assurance I have, that I may give 
way to iny indolence, aud keep your affection nevertheless. 

In fact, in my character of Lion's Wife here, I have writing 
enough to do. by constraint, for disgusting even a Duchess of Or- 
leans—applications from young ladies for autographs; passionate 
invitations to dine; announcements of inexpressible longings to 
drink tea with me; — all that sort of thing, which, as a provincial 
girl, I should have regarded perhaps as high promotion, but which 
at this time of day I regard as very silly and tiresome work; frit- 
ters away my time in fractionary writing, against the grain, and 
leaves me neither sense nor spirit for writing the letters which 
would suggest themselves in course of nature. Dear Susan. I am 
sorry to say this world looks always the more absurd to me the 
longer I live in it! But, thank Heaven, I am not the shepherd set 
over them; so let them go their way: while we, who are a little 
higher than the sheep, go ours! Now don't be fancying that I am 
growing into a 'proud Pharisee.' which were even a degree worse 
than a sheep! Not at all ! I have a bad nervous system, keeping 
me iua state of greater or less physical suffering all days of my life, 
and that is the most infallible specific against the sin of spiritual 
pride that I happen to know of. 

I am better this winter, however, than I have been for the last 
four winters. Only the confinement (I never get across the thresh- 
old in frost) is rather irksome, and increases my liability to head- 
ache; but it is a great improvement to have no cough aud to be 
able to keep in the perpendicular. 

For my husband, he is as usual; never healthy, never absolutely 
ill; protesting against 'things in general ' with the old emphasis; 
with an increased vehemence just at present, being in the agonies 
of getting under way with another book. He has had it iu his head 
for a good while to write a ' Life of Cromwell,' and has been sit- 

1 Susan Hunter, now married. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



21 



ting for monies back in a mess of great dingy folios, the very look 
of which is like to give me locked-jaw. 

I never sefe Mrs. Empson; she lives at a distance from me, in an- 
other sphere of things. Her being here, however, is an advantage 
to me, iu bringing her father oftener to London; and he does what 
he can to seem constant. I shall always love him, and feel grate- 
ful to him; all my agreeable recollections of Edinburgh I owe to 
him directly or indirectly; the delightful evenings at 'Mr. John's,' 
and so much else. 

By the way, Susan, I can never understand what you mean by 
talking of gratitude to me. The gratitude, it seems to me, should 
be all on my side. But when people love one another, there is no 
need of debating such points. 

I see Mr. C once a week or so; he did seem to get a great 

good of me (perhaps I should say of us; but it is more sincere as I 
have written it) for a year or two; but latterly I think he has got 
some new light, or darkness, or I know not what, which makes him 
seek my company more from habit than from any pleasure he finds 
in it — 'the waur 1 for himsel',''-' — as they say in Annandale. In 
London, above all places on earth, 'iln'y a point d'homme neces- 
saire ; ' if one gives over liking you, another begins — that is to say 
if you be likeable, which I may, without outrage to modesty and 
probability, infer that I am, since so many have liked me, first and 
last. There is you, away at Dundee, have gone on liking me with- 
out the slightest encouragement, for so many mortal years now! 
And even 'Mr. John,' 3 could not help liking me, though he met 
me with prepossession that ' I had been a dreadful flirt;' so at least 
he told his brother, I remember, who in right brotherly fashion re- 
ported it to me the first opportunity. If I bad only been still un- 
married, and had not been obliged to look sharper to my repu- 
tation, I would have made your quiet Mr. John pay for that 
speech ! 

What a likeable man, by the way, your brother in Edinburgh is; 4 
so intelligent and so unpretentious — a combination not often to be 
found in Edinburgh; so quietly clever and quietly kind. I love 
quiet things; and quiet good tilings will carry me to enthusiasm; 
though, for the rest, my quality of enthusiasm is pretty well got 
under. 

God bless you, dear. Kind regards to your husband and sister 
Carlyle joins me in all good wishes. 

Your affectionate 

J. Carlyle. 

LETTER 28. 

This of the 'bit of lace' I can throw no light on. Some kindly 
gift of Sterling's, thrust in by an unexpected crevice (in which he 
had great expertness and still greater alacrity)? The black colour 
too suggestive in the place it went to? — T. 0. 

To the Rev. John Sterling, Penzance. 

Chelsea: April 29, 1841. 

My dear John, — I do not know whether for you, as for old Bur- 
ton, ' a woman in tears be as indifferent a spectacle as a goose going 
barefoot ! ' If so, I make you my compliments, and you need not 
read any further. But if you have still enough of human feeling 
(or, as my husband would call it, '"Minerva Press" tendency ') 
about you, to feel yourself commoved by such phenomena, it may 
interest you to know that, on opening your letter the other day, and 
beholding the little ' feminine contrivance ' inside, I suddenly and 
unaccountably fell a-crying. as if I had gained a loss. I do not 
know what of tender and sad and ' unspeakable ' there lay for my 
imagination in that lace article, folded up, unskilfully enough, by 
man's fingers — your fingers; and wrapt round with kind written 
words. But so it was. I wept; and, if this was not receiving your 
remembrance in the properest way, I beg of you to read me no lec- 
ture on the subject; for your lectures are hateful to me beyond ex- 
pression, and their only practical result is to strengthen me in my 
own course. 

My husband is not returned yet, is now at his mother's in 
Scotland. 5 He will come. I suppose, the beginning of next week. 
These three weeks of solitude have passed very strangely with me. 
I have been worn out by what the cockneys call ' mental worry.' 
His jury-trials, his influenza, &c, all things had been against me. 
For the first time in my life, I could sympathize with Byron's 
Giaour ; and, so soou as I had the house all to myself, I flung my- 
self on the sofa, with the feeling, 

I would not, if I might, be blest. 
I want no Paradise— but rest I 

And accordingly the scope of my being ever since has been to ap- 
proximate, as nearly as possible, to nonentity. And I flatter my- 
self that my efforts have been tolerably successful. Day after day 
has found me stretched out on my sofa with a circulating library 
book in my hand, which I have read, if at all, in Darley's fashion 
— ' one eye shut, and the other not open.' Evening after evening 

' Wanr. worse 2 SeV, self. s Jeffrey. 

* John Hunter, a worthy and prosperous law official in Edinburgh residence 
Craigcrook (Jeffrey's fine villa), fell weak of nerves and died several vears 
ago (note of 1&73). 

» To Milne's, at Fryston, in 1841, afterwards to Scotland. 



1 have dreamt away in looking into the fire, and wondering to see 
myself here, iu this great big absurdity of a world! In short my 
existence since I was left, alone has been an apathy, tempered by 
emanations of the 'Minerva Press.' Promising! Well, I shall 
have to return to my post again presently. One has to die at one's 
post, has one not? The wonderful thing for me is alwa}'S the pro- 
digiously long while one takes to die. But 

That is the mystery of this wonderful history 
And you wish that you could tell 1 

There is a copy of ' Emerson's Essays ' come for you here. I wish 
you good of them. God bless you! 

Ever your affectionate 

Jake Carlyle. 

LETTER 29. 

This letter, which I did not know of before, must have produced 
the ' Foreign Quarterly Review ' article, ' Characteristics of Ger- 
man Genius,' which occupies pp. 382-422 in vol. i. of Hare's Book. 
A letter which tells its own story; solely, in regard to ' Forster' it 
should be known that be was yet but a new untried acquaintance, 
and that our tone towards or concerning him, both as 'critic' and 
as ever-obliging friend, greatly improved itself, on the ample trial 
there was. 

That of ' worst critic in England but one ' was John Mill's laugh- 
ing deliverance, one evening, as I still remember, imitated from 
Chamfort's Dites I'acant-dernier car il y apresse. — T. C. 

To John Sterling, Esq., Falmouth. 

Chelsea; Jan. 19, 1S48. 

My dear Friend, — I find myself engaged to write you a sort of 
business letter, a thing which lies, one would say, rather out of my 
sphere. But as I have not troubled you with many letters of late, 
you need not quarrel with the present, though on a subject as un- 
congenial to my tastes and habits as it can possibly be to yours, 
Mr."' Hurdy-Gurdy.' 

There is alive at present in God's universe, and likely to live, 
a man, Forster by name, a barrister, without practice, residing at 
number fifty-eight Lincoln's-Iun Fields, not unknown to fame as 
' the second worst critic of the age,' who has gained himself a tol- 
erable footing in our house and hearts, by, I cannot precisely say, 
what merits. Latterly, Carlyle has not thought him ' so very bad 
a critic;' for he finds him here and there taking up a notion of his 
own, ' as if he understood it.' For my part. I have always thought 
rather well of his judgment; for, from the first, he has displayed a 
most remarkable clear-sightedness, with respect to myself; think- 
ing me little short of being as great a genius as my husband. And 
you, by you also his character as a critic has deserved to be redeemed 
from contempt; for he it was who wrote the article in the ' Exam- 
iner ' in praise of 'The Election.' 1 Well! all this preamble was 
not essential to the understanding of what is to follow ; but at least 
it will not help to darken it, which is as much as could be expected 
of a female writer. 

This man, then, has been taking counsel with me — me of all 
people that could have been pitched upon — how to give new life to 
a dying Review, 'The Foreign,' namely. 4 It has passed into the 
hands of new publishers. Chapman and Hall, active and moneyed 
men, who are intent on raising a corps of new worthy contributors, 
who are somehow (I do not understand that part of it) to kill and 
devour the old editor, a Dr. Worthington, who has been for a long 
time 'sitting on it as an incubus.' What they are to do next, that 
they will arrange, I suppose, among themselves. Meanwhile, of 
course, they are to be handsomely paid for their pains. 

Now, in casting our eyes about for men of genius, fit to infuse 
new life into dead matter, there naturally slid over 1113' lips your 
name, ' John Sterling, if the " Review" could be helped by a fifty- 
page article in rhyme! ' ' Why not iu prose? ' said Forster. ' Ah! 
that is another question ; to persuade him to write prose would not 
be so easy.' ' At all events,' said Forster, with a burst of enthusi- 
asm, ' he can, and shall, and must be applied to.' And, accord- 
ingly, he took your address for that purpose. Having consulted 
with the publishers, for whom he is acting gratuitously as Prime 
Minister, for the mere love of humanity and his own inward glory, 
he finds that it were the most promising way of setting about the 
thing, to apply to you through some personal friend, and he does 
me the honour of taking me for such, in which I hope he is not 
mistaken. 

To-day I have a letter from him. from which I extract the most 
important paragraph (most important for the business in hand that 
is, for it contains an invitation to dinner, with bright schemes for 
going to the play): — 'Will you propose the article on Dante to 
Mazzini, and I want 3'ou to write and ask John Sterling (indication 
of celebrity) to write an article for the next " Foreign Quarterly," 
placing no restraint on his opinions in anyway. If he will but con- 
sent to do anything, he may be as radical as he was in his last con- 
tribution to Conservatism: you have, if your kindness will take it, 
full authority from me. This Dr. Worthington, it seems, is to be 
got rid of, and as speedily as possible. If these two articles are 



Sterling's poem, so named. 



2 Foreign Quarterly, that is. 



22 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



supplied, it is supposed that they will go far towards knocking- him 
on the head — a matter of much desirability. That done, Carlyle 
must help these active and excellent publishers to a good man. 

' Thackeray proposes ' (remember all this is strictly private, you 
who accuse me- of blabbing) 'offering to keep a hot kitchen (the 
grand editorial requisite) on a thousand a year. To that there are 
one or two objections. But he is going to write an article on 
France and Louis Philippe, which, if he chooses to take pains, none 
could do belter, &c, &c. 

So there you have my story. Can you do anything with it? 
Even if it were only for my private consolation, I should like to see 
some prose from you once more in this world. Think and answer. 
There is written on the margin of the letter I have quoted, ' The 
articles as soon as possible!' To which I answered, 'If John 
Sterling does the thing at all, to be sure he will do. it fast.' Carlyle 
bids me say that he is purposing to write to you in two days. 

Remember me in all kindness to your wife, and believe me, 
Ever affectionately yours ' til deth,' 

Jane Carlyle. 

I have your little Florentine Villa framed and hung up, and I 
look at it very often for its own beauty and your sake. 1 

LETTER 30. 

The enclosed notes, I suppose, are from Forster. Mrs. Taylor, 
who used to be well known to us, became afterwards John Mill's 
wife.— T. C. 

To, John Sterling, Esq., Edmouth. 

Chelsea: Thursday, Jan. -Feb. 1842. 

My Dear Friend, — The inclosed notes, one to .yourself and 
auother to myself, will settle, I hope, the question of the article in 
a satisfactory manner, without my playing at editors any further, 
or even dawning further on your astonished sense as the Armida of 
the 'Foreign Quarterly' (Cavaignac used to call Mrs. Taylor 'the 
Armida of the " London ami Westminster.'") I was clearly born for 
the ornamental rather than the useful, and I have no faith in any- 
thing being done by going into the teeth of one's nature. 

You ask me how I like your last sendings? In answer I must 
begin a good way off. When you took it into your head to make a 
quarrel with me about ' The Election,' ■ actually to complain of me 
to my husband! (complaining of me to myself would not have been 
half so provoking); when you thus exposed me to you knew not 
what matrimonial thunders, which however did not or that occasion 
so much as begin to rumble, my husband knowing me to be inno- 
cent in the transaction as a sucking dove; I was angry, naturally. 
El tu brute.' Had I loved you little, I should not have minded; 
but loving you much, Iregarded myself as afemmc incomprise, and, 
what was still worse, maltreated. And so, there and then, 'I reg- 
istered' (like O'Connell) 'a vow in heaven,' never to meddle or 
make with manuscript of yours any more, unless at your own par- 
ticular bidding. Accordingly, these manuscripts, sent to Carlyle, 
I have not had once in my hands. The best passages that he found 
in them he read aloud to me; that was his pleasure, and so I felt 
myself at liberty to hear and admire. But from hearing only the 
best passages, one can form no true judgment as to the whole, so I 
am not prepared to offer any. Now that yon have asked me 
my opinion, I should have fallen with all my heart to reading 
' Strafford,' which was still here; but Carlyle, I knew, did not like 
it as a whole, whereas I liked extremely those passages he had read 
to me, and I liked better to part with it in the admiring mood than 
the disparaging .me; and who could say, if I read it all, but I 
should turn to his way of thinking about it? So there you have 
my confession! Only this I need to tell you — I would not give 
your last letter to C. for the best drama of Shakespeare! and I care 
little what comes of John Sterling the poet, so long as John Ster- 
ling the man is all that my heart wishes him to be. 

God bless you, and remember me always as 

Your true friend, 

Jane Carlyle. 

Shortly after this letter there came ill news from Templand— ill 
news, or which to her vigilant affection had an ill sound in them, 
and winch indeed was soon followed by a doleful and irreparable 
calamity there. Something in a letter of her mother's, touching 
lightly enough on some disorder of health she was under, and treat- 
ing the case as common and of no significance, at once excited my 
poor Jeannie's suspicion, and I had to write to Dr. Russell, 3 asking 
confidentially, and as if for myself only, what the real state of mat- 
ters was 1 Tin- Doctor answered cautiously, yet on the whole hope- 
fully, though not without some ambiguity, which was far enough 
from quieting our suspicions here; and accordingly, almost by next 
letter (February 2:; or 21 I find it must have been), came tidings of 
a 'stroke,' apoplectic, paralytic; immediate danger now over, but 
future danger fatally evident! 



1 It is still here, in my dressing-closet (April, 1S69). 

'Sterling's poem, some secret about which Sterling supposed Mrs. Carlyle 
to have revealed. 
s Of Thornhill, near Templand. 



My poor little woman instantly got ready. That same night 
(wild, blustering, rainy night, darkness without us and within), I 
escorted her to Euston Square for the evening train to Liverpool. 
She was deaf, or all but deaf, to any words of hope I could urge. 
Never shall I forget her look as she sat in the railway carriage, seat 
next the window, still close by me, but totally silent; her beautiful 
eyes full of sorrowful affection, gloomy pain, and expectation, gaz- 
ing steadily forward, as if questioning the huge darkness, while the 
train rolled away. Alas, at Liverpool, her cousins (Maggie still 
remembers it here, after twenty-seven years) had to answer, 'All 
is over at Templand, cousin, gone, gone!' and with difficulty, and 
with all the ingenuity of love and pity, got her conveyed to bed. 
February 36, 1842, her mother had 'departed; that 'first stroke' 
mercifully the final one. ' Uncle John, ' &c. , from Liverpool, had 
found now no sister to welcome him; blithe Templand all fallen 
dark and silent now; Sister Jeannie, Father Walter, Sister Grizzie 
also no more there. 

I followed to Liverpool two days after (funeral already not to be 
reached by me), found my poor jeannie still in bed. sick of body, 
still more of mind and heart, miserable as I had never seen her. 
The same night I went by mail-coach (no railway farther for me) 
to Carlisle, thence through Annan, &c, and was at Templand next 
morning for a late breakfast. Journey in all parts of it still 
strangely memorable to me. Weather hard, hoar-frosty, windy; 
wrapt in an old dressing-gown with mackintosh buttoned round it, 
I effectually kept out the cold, and had a strange night of it, on the 
solitary coach-roof, under the waste-blowing skies, through the 
mountains, to Carlisle. It must have been Saturday, I now find, 
Carlisle market-day. Other side of that city we met groups of mar- 
ket-people; at length groups of Scotch farmers or dealers solidly 
jogging thither, in some of which I recognized old school-fellows! 
A certain 'Jock Beattie,' perhaps twelve years my senior, a big 
good-humoured fellow finishing bis arithmetics, ifcc.who used to be 
rather good to me, him I distinctly noticed after five-and-twenty 
years, grown to a grizzled, blue-visaged sturdy giant, sunk in com- 
forters and woollen wrappages, plod-plodding there at a stout pace, 
and still good-humouredly, to Carlisle market (as a big bacon-dealer, 
&c, it afterwards appeared), and had various thoughts about him, 
far as he was from thought of me! Jock's father, a prosperous 
enough country-carpenter, near by the kirk and school of Hoddam, 
was thrice-great as a ruling-elder (indeed, a very long-headed, 
strictly orthodox man), well known to my father, though I think 
silently not so well approved of in all points. ' Wull Beattie,' was 
my father's name for him. Jock's eldest brother, 'Sandy Beattie,' 
a Probationer (Licentiate of the Burgher Church), stepping into our 
school one day, my age then between seven and eight, had reported 
to my father that I must go into Latin, that I was wasting my time 
otherwise, which brought me a Ruddiman's ' Rudiments,' some- 
thing of an event in the distance of the past. At Annan, in the 
rimy-hazy morning, I sat gazing on the old well-known houses, on 
the simmering populations now all new to me — very strange, these 
old unaltered stone-and-mortar edifices, with their inmates changed 
and gone! — meanwhile there stalked past, in some kind of rusty gar- 
niture against the cold, a dull, gloomy, hulk of a figure, whom I 
clearly recognized for 'Dr. Waugh,' 1 luckless big goose (with 
something better in him too, which all went to failure and futility), 
who is to me so tragically memorable! Him I saw in this unseen 
manner: him and no other known to me there — him also for the 
last time. Six miles farther, I passed my sister Mary Austin's 
farmstead in Cummertrees. Poor kind Mary! little did she dream 
of me so near! At Dumfries, my sister Jean, who had got some 
inkling, was in waiting where the coach stopped; she half by 
force hurried me over to her house, which was near, gave me a hot 
cup of tea, &c. and had me back again in plenty of time. Soon 
after 10 a.m. 1 was silently set down by the wayside, beckoned a 
hedger working not far off to cany my portmanteau the bit of fur- 
long necessary, and, with thoughts enough articulate and inarticu- 
late, entered the old Templand now become so new and ghastly. 

For two months and more I had to continue there, sad but not 
unhappy. Good John Welsh, with his eldest daughter Helen and 
a lady cousin of his, good active people, were there to welcome me, 
and had the house all in order. In about a week these all went, 
but leP au excellent old servant; and for the rest of the time I 
was as if in perfect solitude — my converse with the mute universe 
mainly. Much there was to settle, and I had to speak and negotia- 
ate with various people. Duke's farm-agents; but that was only at 
intervals and for brief times; and, indeed, all that could have 
been finished soon, had the agent people (factor, subfactors, &c. , 
&c.) been definite and alert with me, which they by no means 
were. Nay, ere long. I myself grew secretly to like the entire se- 
clusion, the dumb company of earth and sky. and did not push as 
I might have done. Once or twice I drove across the hills to An 
nandale; had one of my brothers, Jamie or Alick, on this or the 
other 'errand,' over to me for a day; had my dear old mother for 
perhaps a week at one time; I had also friendly calls to make 
(resolutely refusing all dinners); but on the whole felt that silence 
was the wholesome, strengthening, and welcome element. I walked 
a great deal, my thoughts sad and solemn, seldom or never meanly 
painful— sometimes in the great joyless stoicism (great as life itself), 



1 See Reminiscences, p. 49. Harper's Edition. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



23 



sometimes of) victorious or high. The figure of the actual terres- 
trial 'spring' (the first I had seen for years, the last I ever saw) 
was beautitul, symbolic to me.full of wild grandeur and meanings. 
By day. now bright sunshine and a tinge of hopeful green, then 
suddenly the storm-cloud seen gathering itself far up in the centre 
of the hills, and anon rushing down in mad fury, by its several 
valleys (Nith, &c, &c , which I could count); a canopy of circular 
storm, split into spokes, and whitening everything with snow! I 
did not read much — nothing that I now recollect: 'Cromwell' 
books, which were then my serious reading, were, of course, all 
in Chelsea. By some accident, now forgotten, I had slid into 
something of correspondence with Lockhart more than I ever 
had before or after; three or four altogether friendly, serious, and 
pleasant notes from him I remember there, which I doubt are not 
now in existence. A hard, proud, but thoroughly honest, singularly 
intelligent, and also affectionate man, whom in the distance I es 
teemed more than perhaps he ever knew. Seldom did I speak to 
him; but hardly ever without learning and gaining something. 
From ' Satan Montgomery,' too, I was surprised by a letter or two, 
invoking me (absurdly enough) to ' review ' some new book of his 
(rhymed rigmarole on 'Luther,' I believe), 'Oh, review it, you 
who can; you who,' &c. , &c. ! "Windy soul, flung aloft by popular 
delusion, he soon after died with all his vanities and glories! 

My plan of business had at first been, ' Let us keep this house 
and garden as they are, and sublet the land ; no prettier place of 
refuge for us could be in the world! ' But my poor darling shrank 
utterly from that, could not hear of it in her broken heart; which, 
alas, was natural too; so I had to get the lease valued, cancelled; 
sell off everything, annihilate all vestige of our past time there, a 
thing I now again almost regret; and certainly, for the moment, 
it was in itself a very sad operation. The day of the household 
sale, which was horrible to me, I fled away to Crawford Church- 
yard (20 miles off, through the pass of Dalveen, &c), leaving my 
brothers in charge of everything; spent the day there by my 
mother-in-law's grave and in driving thither and back; the day 
was of bright weather, the road silent and solitary. I was not 
very miserable; it was rather like a day of religious worship, till in 
the evening, within short way of Templaud again, I met people 
carrying furniture (Oh heaven; found Templand a ruin, as if sown 
with salt; and had, from various causes, an altogether sorry night 
in Thornhill. Tedious pedantic ' factor' still lingering and loiter- 
ing, I had still to wait at Scotsbrig, with occasional rides across 
to him, and messages and urgencies, before he would conclude; 
' paltry little strutting creature,' thought I sometimes (wrongfully, 
I have been told; at any rate, the poor little soul is now dead, 
requiescat, reqtiiescat !) . It was not till the beginning of May that 
I got actually back to Chelsea, where my poor sorrow-stricken dar- 
ling with Jeannie, her Liverpool cousin, had been all this while; 
and of course, though making little noise about it, was longing to 
have me back. 

Her letters during those two months of absence seem to be all 
lost. I remember their tone of mournful tenderness; the business 
part, no doubt, related to the bits of memorials and household relics 
I was to bring with me, which, accordingly, were, all carefully 
packed and conveyed, and remain here in pious preservation to this 
day: a poor praying child, some helpless enough rustic carving in 
funeral jet, commemorative of ' John Welsh ' ; these and other such 
things, which had pleased her mother, though in secret not her, she 
now accepted with repentant fondness, and kept as precious. She 
had great care about matters of that kind; had a real, though un- 
believing, notion about omens, luck, ' first foot ' on New Year's 
morning, &c. ; in fact, with the clearest and steadiest discerning 
head, a tremulously loving heart! I found her looking pale, thin, 
weak; she did not complain of health, but was evidently suffering 
that way too: what she did feel was of the mind, of the heart sunk 
in heaviness; and of this also she said little, even to me not much. 
Words could not. avail : a mother and mother's love were gone, ir- 
revocable; the sunny fields of the past had all become sunless, fate- 
ful, sorrowful, and would smile no more! A mother dead: it is 
an epoch for us all ; and to each one of us it comes with a pungency 
as if peculiar, a look as of originality and singularity! Once or 
oftener she spoke to me in emphatic self-reproach, in vehement re- 
pentance about her mother: though seldom had any daughter in- 
trinsically less ground for such a feeling. But, alas, we all have 
ground for it! could we but think of it sooner; inexpressible the 
sadness to think of it too late. That little fact of the ' two caudles' 
mentioned above, 1 reserved in sad penitence to be her own death- 
lights after seven-and-twenty years — what a voice is in that, piercing 
to one's very soul ! All her mother's 'poor people,' poor old half- 
crazy 'Mary Mills,' and several others (for Mrs. Welsh was ever 
beneficent and soft of heart), she took the strictest inheritance of, 
and punctually transmitted from her own small pin-money their 
respective doles at the due day, till the last of them died aud 
needed no gift more. I well remember, now with emotion enough, 
the small bank cheques I used to write for her on those occasions, 
always accurately paid me on the spot, from her own small, small 
fund of pin-money (I do believe, the smallest any actual London 
lady, and she was ever emphatically such, then had). How beautiful 
is noble poverty! richer, perhaps, than the noblest wealth! For 

1 Reminiscences, p. 316. Harper's Edition. 



the rest, I too have my self-reproaches; my sympathy for her, 
though sincere aud honest, was not always perfect; no, not as hers 
for me in the like case had been. Once, and once only, she even said 
to me (I forget altogether for what) some thrice-sad words, ' It is 
the first time you show impatience with my grief, dear' — words 
which pain my heart at this moment. Ah me! 'too late'; I also 
too late! 

The summer could not but pass heavily in this manner; but it 
did grow quieter and quieter. Little cousin Jeannie was very 
affectionate aud good; my own return had brought something of 
light into the household; various kind friends we had, who came 
about us diligently. Time itself, the grand soother aud physician, 
was silently assuaging — never fails to do so, unless one is oneself 
too near the finis! Towards autumn Mrs. Buller, who had at the 
first meeting, years ago, recognized my Jeannie, and always, I 
think, liked her hotter and better, persuaded her to a visit of some 
three weeks out to Troston in Suffolk, where Mrs. Buller herself 
aud husband were rusticating with the Rev. Reginald, their young- 
est son, who was parson there. This visit took effect, and even 
prospered beyond hope, agreeable in every essential way; enter- 
taining to the parties; and lasted beyond bargain. It was the 
first reawakening to the sight of life for my poor heavy-laden one; 
a salutary turning aside, what we call diversion, of those sad cur 
rents and sad stagnancies of thought into fruitfuller course; and, 
I think, did her a great deal of good. Lucid account is given of 
it in the six following letters which we have now arrived at, which 
I still recollect right well.— T. C. 

[Before these letters, I introduce two of many written in the in- 
terval by Mrs. Carlyle to other friends after her mother's death. 
The first is to the wife of the physician who attended Mrs. Welsh 
in her last illness. — J. A. F.] 

LETTER 31. 
To Mrs. Russell, Thornhill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea : Tuesday, April 1842. 

My dear Mrs. Russell, — I sit down to write to you at last! But 
how to put into written words what lies for you in my heart! If I 
were beside you, I feel as if I should throw myself on your neck, 
and cry myself to rest like a sick child. At this distance, to ask in 
cold writing all the heart-breaking things I would know of you, 
and to say all the kind things I would say for her and myself, is 
indeed quite impossible for me. You will come and see me, will 
you not, before very long? I can never go there again; but 
you will come to me? travelling is made so easy now! And I 
should feel such gratification in receiving into my own house one 
who was ever so dearly welcome in hers, aud who, of all who loved 
her, was, by one sad chance and another, the only one whose love 
was any help to her when she most needed our love ! She blessed 
you for the comfort you gave her, and you shall be blessed for it 
here and hereafter. The dying blessing of such a pure fervent 
heart as hers cannot have been pronounced on you in vain; and 
take my blessing also, 'kind sweet' woman! a less holy one, but 
not less sincerely given! 

Will you wear the little thing I inclose in remembrance of 
me, and of this time? You will also receive, through my 
cousin in Liverpool, a little box, and scarf, of hers, which I am 
sure you will like to have; and along with these will be sent 
to your care a shawl for Margaret Hiddlestone, who is another that 
I shall think of with grateful affection, as long as I live, for the 
comfort which she bestowed on her during the last weeks. I 
think Dr. Russell has some of her books; I desired that he should 
have them. He has given me an inestimable gift in that letter; for 
which I deeply thank him, and for so much else. Remember me 
to your father. I sent him the poor old Tablet last week; I know 
he used to get it from her. Will you write two or three lines to 
my Aunt Ann — you sometimes write to her, I believe — and say to 
her that, although returned to London, aud a good deal better in 
health, I am still incapable of much exertion of any sort, and have ' 
not yet set about answering my letters? She sent me a long ser- 
mon, to which she has, no doubt, looked for some reply; it was 
well meant, aud I would not offend her, but I am not up to corre- 
spondences of that sort just now. 

All good be with you all. Think of me, and pray for me; I have 
much need of more help than lies in myself, to bear up against the 
stroke that has fallen on me. 

Ever affectionately yours, 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 32. 

To Miss Margaret Welsh, 1 Liverpool. 

Chelsea: Friday, July 15, 1842. 
My dear Maggie, — It was a good thought in you to send me the 
little purse, and I feel very grateful to you for it. This last birth- 
day was very sad for me, as you may easily supnose, very unlike 
what it was last year, and all former years; and I needed all the 
heartening kind souls could give me. But, by your kindness and 



1 Daughter of John Welsh, sister of Helen. 



24 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



that of others, the day was got over with less of a forsaken feeling 
than could have been" anticipated. Only think of my husband, loo, 
having given me a little present! he who never attends to such 
nonsenses as birthdays, and who dislikes nothing in the world so 
much as going into a shop to buy anything, even his own trowsers 
and coats; so that, to the consternation of cockney tailors, I am 
obliged to go about them. Well, he actually risked himself in a 
jeweller's shop, and bought me a very nice smelling-bottle! ' I can- 
not tell you how wae his little gift made me, as well as glad; it was 
the first thing of the kind he ever gave to me in his life. In great 
matters he is" always kind and considerate; but these little atten- 
tions, which we women attach so much importance to, he was 
never in the habit of rendering to anyone; his up-bringing, and the 
severe turn of mind he has from nature, had alike indisposed him 
towards them. And now the desire to replace to me the irre- 
placeable, makes him as good in little things as he used to be in 
great. 

Helen's box arrived this morning; so like a Templand box! Alas, 
alasi those preserves! I had thought about making some all this 
time, and never could bring myself to set about it. It was not only 
to make them, but to learn to make them, for me; and I had finally 
settled it with myself that I must be stronger before I did such out- 
of-the-way things. So that in every way Helen's present is wel- 
come; most of all welcome for the kind consideration it shows for 
my helplessness, and the quantity of really disagreeable labour she 
lias imposed on herself for my sake. Give her my kindest love, 
and say I will write in a day or two to herself. I have been mean- 
ing to write to her every day this week back, but the pigs have 
always rim through the good intention. 

Jeanuie expresses surprise at the fancy of ' sending coffee to 
Chelsea;' but, for my share, I find the 'fancy' extremely reason- 
able, considering that when I was in Liverpool I brought coffee 
from there to Chelsea, and a very good speculation it turned out. 

Thank my uncle for his golden kiss. I am thinking seriously 
■what to do with it, as I never eat snaps; and besides would rather 
invest such an amount of capital in something of a permanent char- 
acter, that might remind me of him more agreeably than by an in- 
digestion; but, for my life, I cannot fix upon anything that I need, 
and to buy something that I feel to be superfluous is so little in my 
■way! I think I shall let it be in the purse for good luck till winter, 
and then buy something particularly cosy to put about my throat. 

As to ' Miss JeannieV return, I can only tell you that neither I 
nor anybody else hereabouts show any symptoms of 'tiring of her;' 
the first person to tire, I imagine, will be herself. Her picture is 
come home from the frame maker, aud looks very fine indeed in its 
gilt ornamentality I think it perfectly like, aud a beautiful little 
picture willed, wherein, however, 1 differ from many persons, who 
say it ' is not flattered enough' ; as if a picture must needs be flat- 
tered to be what it ought to be. 

We went down the water last night to take tea with the Chaplain 
of Guy's Hospital; found him aud his wife in the country, aud had 
to return tea-less, rather belated, and extremely cold; the conse- 
quence of which bt'tise is, that to day I am hoarse, with a soreish 
head and soreish throat; so you will excuse my horrible writing. 
God bless you all. 

Ever your affectionate Cousin, 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 33. 

The Buller family consisted of three sons- Charles, M.P. &c, a 
man of distinguished faculties and qualities, who was now at length 
rising into recognition, influence, aud distinction; aud might have 
risen far, had his temper of mind been more stubbornly earnest; 
perhaps I may say, had his bodily constitution been more robust! 
For he was of weak health, lamed of a leg in childhood; had an 
airy winged turn of thought, flowing out in lambencies of beautiful 
spontaneous wit and fancy, which were much admired in society, 
aud too much attracted him thither; so that, with all his integrity, 
cleverness, aud constant veracity of intellect and of character, he 
did not, nor ever could, as a ' reformer. ' so much express his inborn 
detestation of the base and false by practically winking to undo it, 
as by showering witty scorn upon it; in which, indeed, I never saw 
his rival, had that been the way to do good upon it. Poor Charles, 
only five years afterwards he died, amid universal regret, which did 
not last long, nor amount to anything! He had procured for his 
younger brother Arthur, who was my oilier pupil, some law appoint 
ment in Ceylon, which proved sufficient; and for his youngesl 
brother Reginald (who used to dine with me in Edinburgh in the 
tutor times, an airy, pen-drawing, skipping clever enough little 
creature then) a richish country living; where, as utterly stupid 
somnolent 'Reverend Incumbent.' he placidly vegetated thence- 
forth, and still vegetates. Thackeray the novelist had been a 
college companion of his own ; that perhaps is now his chief dis- 
tinction. 

Mr. aud Mrs. Charles Buller, senior, who now lead a somewhat 
nomadic life, in the manner of ex-Indians of distinction, were su- 



1 Carlyle never forgot her birthday afterwards. Regularly, as July came 
round, I find traces of some remembrance— some special letter with some in- 
closed present.— J. A. F. 



perior people both; persons of sound judgment, of considerable 
culture and experience, of thoroughly polite manners (Madam con- 
siderably in the Indian style, as ex-' queen of Calcutta,' which she 
was, with a great deal of sheet-lightning in her ways). Charles, 
senior, was considerably deaf, a real sorrow to one so fond of lis- 
tening to people of sense; for the rest, like his wife, a person of 
perfect probity, politeness, truthfulness, and of a more solid type 
than she; he read (idlj', when he must), rode for exercise, was, 
above all, fond of chess, in which game he rarely found his supe- 
rior. Intrinsically these excellent people had from the first, aud 
all along, been very good to me; never boggled at my rustic out- 
side or melancholic dyspeptic ways, but took, with ardent welcome, 
whatever of best they could discern within — over-estimating ali, not 
under-estimating — especially not 'the benefit,' &c. Charles, junior, 
was getting of me. Indeed, talent of all real kinds was dear to 
them (to the lady especially); and at bottom the measure of human 
worth to both. Nobody in London, accordingly, read sooner what 
my rural Jeannie intrinsically was; discerned better what graces 
and social resources might lie under that modest veiling; or took 
more eagerly to profiting by these capabilities whenever possible. 
Mrs. Buller was, by maiden name, Kirkpatrick, a scion of the 
Closeburn (Dumfriesshire) people, which, in its sort, formed an- 
other little tie.— T. C. 

To T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 
Troston, near St. Edmundsbury, Suffolk: Friday, Aug. 11, 1843. 

Here I am then, dearest, established at Troston Rectory, my 
clothes all in the drawers; one night over; and for the rest, the 
body and soul of me 'as well as can be expected.' The journey 
was less fatiguing than we had supposed; the coach got into Bury 
at three instead of five; and Mr. Buller and the carriage revealed 
themselves immediately to my searching eyes. Except my parasol, 
I committed no further stupidity. At eleven o'clock I ate a small 
Ghent loaf, or the greater part of it (and a very good little loaf it 
proved to be), a small biscuit, and a bit of Jeannie's barley-sugar; 
and at two I ate the Ghent .... proved to be grey rye with 
currants in it. I had also, through the politeness of the gentleman in 
the grey jacket, a glass of water, slightly flavoured with onions. 
We did not sit in coach on the railway; they put us into a railway 
carriage, only leaving the luggage in the coach. The country, 
most part of the way, reminded me of East Lothian; hereabouts it 
is richer, aud better wooded. The harvest was going on briskly 
— this to show you that I did not sit ' with my eyes on the apron 
of the gig.' 

My reception here was most cordial; Mrs. Buller met me with 
open arms (literally), aud called me 'dear, dear Mrs. Carlyle'; 
which, from a woman so little expansive, was highly flattering. 
She looks dreadfully ill; as if she were only kept alive by the force 
of her own volition; and is more out of spirits than I ever saw her. 
No wonder! for little Theresa is gone away, and they feel her loss 
as much as if she had been their real child. Theresa's mother has 
fallen ill — of consumption, the doctors say — and is ordered to the 
South of France, as the only means of prolonging her life for a 
year or so. She wished to have her child go with her, and Mrs. 
Buller could not resist, her wishes, under the circumstances; so the 
little thing was sent off to her, attended by a governess, three days 
ago. The mother is a most amiable and unfortunate woman, Mrs. 
Buller says; aud she seems to have been on the most intimate 
terms with her. But Mrs. Buller reads George Sand, like me. 

This rectory is a delightful place to be in, in warm weather; 
but in winter, it must be the reverse of comfortable; all the room- 
windows opening as doors into the garden, vines hanging over 
them, &c, &c. It is a sort of compromise between a country par- 
sonage, and an aristocratic cottage; and compromises never are 
found to answer, I think, in the long run. It stands in the midst 
of green fields and fine tall trees; with the church (if such an old 
dilapidated building can be called a church) within a bowshot of 
it. Around the church is a little quiet-looking church-yard, 
which, with the sun shining on it, does not look at all sad. A 
foot-path about half-a-yard wide, and overgrown with green, and 
strewn with fallen apples, cuts across the bit of green field between 
the church aud the rectory, and being the only road to the church, 
one may infer from it several things! 

I went into the church last night with Reginald, while Mrs. 
Buller was having her drive; and when I looked at Itim and it, aud 
thought of the four hundred and fifty living souls who were to be 
saved through such means, I could almost have burst into tears. 
Anything so like the burial place of revealed religion you have 
never seen, nor a rector more fit to read its burial-service! The 
church-bell rings, night and morning, with a plaintive clang. I 
asked, 'Was it for prayers?' 'No, it was to warn the gleaners 
that it w T as their time to go out and to come in.' 'Monsieur, cela 
vousfera uu,' ifec. 1 

Let no mortal hope to escape night-noises so long as he is above 
ground! Here, one might have thought that all things, except per- 
haps the small birds rejoicing, would have let one alone, and the 
fact is that, with one devilry after another, I have had hardly any 
sleep, for all so dead-weary as I lay down. Just as I was dropping 

1 Grand plaisir, perhaps. 



\ 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



25' 



asleep, between eleven and twelve, the most infernal serenade 
commenced, in comparison of which the shrieking of Mazeppa 1 is 
soothing melody. It was au ass, or several asses, braying as if the 
devil were in them, just under my open window! It ceased after 
a few minutes, and I actually got to sleep, when it commenced 
again, and I sprang up with a confused notion that all the Edin- 
burgh watchmen were yelling round the house, and so on all 
night! Au explosion of ass-brays every quarter of an hour! Then, 
about four, commenced never so many cocks, challenging each 
other all over the parish, with a prodigious accompaniment of 
rooks cawing; ever and anon enlivened by the hooing and squeal- 
ing of a child, which my remembrance of East Lothian instructed 
me was some vermin of a creature hired to keep off the crows 
from the grain. Of course, to-day I have a headache, and if suc- 
ceeding nights are not quieter, or if I do not use to the noise, my 
stay will not be very long. I am now writing in my own room 
(which is very pleasant to sit in), taking time by the forelock, in case 
my head should get worse instead of better, and then, if you were 
cut out of your letter, 'you would be vaixed.' 5 The post leaves 
Ixworth in the evening, but it is two miles to Ixworth, and the 
letters get there as they can; Mrs. Buller generally takes her 
afternoon drive in that direction. Letters come in the morning, 
and this morning I found the French newspaper on the table for 
me. 

I breakfast with Mr. Bul'.er and Reginald at nine, preferring 
that to having it brought to my room as Mrs. Buller recommended. 

I will not write any more to-day, but take care of my head, 
which needs it. So you must give my love to Jeannie, and a kiss, 
and bid her do the best she can on that short common till I am 
rested. God bless you, my dear husband. I hope you are rested, 
and going to Lady Harriet; 3 and I hope you will think of me a 
great deal, and be as good to me when I return as you were when 
I came away — I do not desire any more of you. 

Your own 

J. C. 

LETTER 34. 
To T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

Sunday morning, Aug. 14, 1842. 

My Dearest, — There are two notes from you this morning, one 
on each side of my plate; the first, having the address of Bury, 
only came along with the third; so be sure you keep by Ixworth 
in future. As for ' Keeting,' it turned out on investigation to be 
neither more nor less than Mrs. Buller's way of writing Rectory. 

It is much better with me now, and I find myself quite hefted 
to my new position. But I shall not soon forget the horrors of the 
first day; feeling myself growing every moment worse; away from 
you all, and desperated by the notion of confessing myself ill, and 
going to bed, and causing a fuss among strangers! 

After having written to you, I tried sauntering among the trees; 
tried lying on the sofa in my own room; tried eating dinner (which 
is rationally served up here at three o'clock), and finally tried a 
drive in the carriage with Mrs. Buller, all the while saying nothing. 
But instead of admiring the beauties of Livermere Park, which 
they took me to see, I was wondering whether I should be able to 
' stave off ' fainting till I got back. On ' descending from the car- 
riage,' 1 I had finally to tell Mrs. Buller I was ill and would go to 
bed. She came upstairs after me, and offered me sal volatile, &c. ; 
but seeing that I would have nothing, and wauted only to be let 
alone, she, with her usual good-breeding, pinned the bell-rope to 
my pillow, and went away. A while after, feeling myself turning 
all cold and strange, I considered would I ring the bell; I did not. 
and what came of me I cannot tell — whether 1 fainted, or suddenly 
fell dead-asleep; but when I opened my eyes, as it seemed, a 
minute or two after, it was quite dark, and a maid was lighting a 
night lamp at the table! I asked what o'clock it was? ' Half-past 
eleven! Would I have tea? ' No. ' Did I want anything?' No. 
She was no sooner gone than I fell naturally asleep; and when the 
cocks awoke me after daylight, I was quite free of pain, only des- 
perately wearied. 

The asses did not return the second night, nor last night, and I 
manage better or worse to weave the dogs, cocks, and rooks into 
my dreams. My condition has undergone a further amelioration, 
from having the mattress laid above the dowu-bed; it was like to 
choke me, besides that I lately read somewhere horrible things 
about the ' miasma ' contracted by down-beds from all their various 
occupants through successive generations! and my imagination got 
disagreeably excited in consequence. 

For the rest, nothing can be better suited to my wants than the 
life one has here; so that I feel already quite at home, and almost 
wishing that you were Rector of Trostop — what a blessed exchange 
would it be for those poor people, whom I hear this moment sing- 
ing feckless psalms! I could almost find in my heart to run over 
to the old tower, and give them a word of admonition myself. 



1 A wild horse, which we sometimes hear stamping. &c, here. 

2 A foolish, innocent old Scotch lady's phrase, usually historical or pro- 
phet io, and not a little unimportant. 

3 Lady Harriet Baring, afterwards Lady Ashburton. 

* ' Scende da carrossaS &c, said the Signora degli Antoni, describing the 
erratic town life of a brilliant acquaintance here. 



Reginald does not preach in the morning, he reads service merely, 
and preaches in the afternoon ; I shall go then to see ' how the 
cretur gets through with it.' I have not made out yet whether 
there is a downright want in him, or whether his faculties are sunk 
in shameful indolence. He is grown very much into the figure of 
Mr. Ugilvie in miniature; when he speaks I dare not look at his 
mother, and feel it a mercy for his father that he is so deaf. The 
old people do not~mean to remain here, — the climate does not suit 
Mrs. Buller in winter; but they have not made up their minds 
whether to remove altogether or to hire some place during the cold 
weather. Oh dear me! 'They 1 have trouble that have the worl' 
and trouble that want it.' I do not know whether it be worst to be 
without the power of indulging one's reasonable wishes or to have 
the power of indulging one's whims. So many people we know 
seem to have no comfort with their money, just because it enables 
them to execute all their foolish schemes. 

Jeannie writes to me that when you discovered my parasol'-' you 
' crossed your hands in despair ' as if you had seen ' the sun's per- 
pendicular heat ' already striking down on me. I thought you 
would be vexing yourself about it; but I have not missed it in the 
least; the drive here the first day was cold; and since then I have 
had a parasol of Mrs. Buller's, who rejoices in two. And now 
goodbye, dearest, I have two nice long letters from Jeannie to re- 
turn some acknowledgment for. 

Your own 

Jane C. 

LETTER 35. 

To T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

Troston: Monday, Aug. 15, 1842. 

Dearest,- — It was the stupidest-looking breakfast this morning 
without any letters! — the absence of the -loaf or coffee-pot would 
have been less sensibly felt! However, there is no redress against 
these Loudon Sundays. 

I went to church yesterday afternoon, according to programme, 
and saw and heard ' strange things, upon my honour.' 3 

The congregation consisted of some thirty or forty poor people — ■ 
chiefly adults; who all looked at me with a degree of curiosity 
rather ' strong ' for the place. Reginald ascended the pulpit in his 
white vestment, and, in a loud sonorous, perfectly Church-of-Eug- 
land-like tone, gave out the Psalm, whereupon there arose, at the 
far end of the mouldering church, a shrill clear sound, something 
between a squeal of agony and the highest tone of a bagpipe! I 
looked in astonishment, but could discover nothing; the congrega- 
tion joined in with the invisible thing, which continued to assert 
its predominance, and it was not till the end of the service that 
Hesketh 4 informed me that the strange instrument was ' a clarionet '! 
Necessity is the mother of invention. 

The service went off quite respectably; it is wonderful how 
little faculty is needed for saying prayers perfectly well ! But 
when we came to the sermon! — greater nonsense I have often 
enough listened to — for, in fact, the sermon (Mrs. Buller, with her 
usual sincerity, informed me before I went) 'was none of his'; he 
had scraped together as many written by other people as would 
serve him for years, 'which was much better for the congregation;' 
but be delivered it exactly as daft Mr. Hamilton 6 used to read the 
newspaper, with a noble disdain of everything in the nature of a 
stop; pausing just when he needed breath, at the end of a sen- 
tence, or in the middle of a word, as it happened! In the midst 
of this extraordinary exhortation an infant screamed out, ' Away, 
mammy! Let's away!' and another bigger child went off in 
whooping cough! For my part, I was all the while in a state be- 
tween laughing and crying; nay, doing both alternately. There 

1 In pious Scotland ' the worl'.' or ' worl's gear,' signifies riches. Margaret 
(Smith) Aitkeu, an Annandale farmer's wife, of small possessions, though of 
large and faithful soul, had (perhaps a hundred years ago), by strenuous 
industry and thrift, saved for herself twenty complete shillings— an actual £1 
note, wholly her own, to do what she liked with!— and was much concerned to 
lay it up in"some place of absolute safety against a rainy day. She tried anx- 
iously all her ' hussives,' boxes, drawers, a cunning hole in the wall, various 
places, but found none satisfactory, and was heard ejaculating, to the amuse- 
ment of her young daughters, who never forgot it, 'They have trouble that 
hae the worl', and trouble that haena'tl ' There is a Spanish proverb to the 
same purpose: ' Cuidados acarrea el oro, y cuidados la falta de el.' 

This Margaret Smith, a native of Annan, and, by all accounts, a kinswoman 
to be proud of (or, silently, to be thankful to heaven for), was my mother's 
mother. It was my mother (Margaret Aitken Carlyle) who told us this story 
about her, with a tone of gentle humour, pathos, and heart's love, which we 
were used to on such a subject. I doubt whether I ever saw this good grand- 
mother. A vivid momentary image of some stranger, or, rather, of a formi- 
dable glowing chintz gown belonging to some stranger, who might have been 
she, still rises perfectly certain to me, from my second or third year; but more 
probably it was her sister, my grand-aunt Barbara, of Annan, with whom I 
afterwards boarded when at school there (1806-1808), and whom I almost daily 
heard muttering and weeping about her ' dear Margaret,' and their parting 
' at the dyke-end ' (near Cargenbridge, Dumfries neighbourhood, I suppose, 
perhaps six years before), ' sae little thinking it was for the last time ! ' It is 
inconceivable (till you have seen the documents) what the pecuniary poverty 
of Scotland was a hundred years ago; and, again (of which also i, for one, 
still more indubitably ' have the documents '), its spiritual opulence— opulence 
fast ending in these years, think some? Californian nuggets versus jewels of 
Heaven itself, that is a ruining barter! I know rather clearly, and have much 
considered, the history of my kindred for the third and second generations 
back, and lament always that it is not in my power to speak of it at all to'the 
flunkey populations now coming and corned 

2 Left behind. ■> Phrase of Mazzini's, frequently occurring. 
* Mr. Buller's butler. « Old Haddington phenomenon. 



26 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



■were two white marble tablets before me, containing one the vir- 
tues of a wife and the sorrow of a husband (Capel Loft), the other 
'i beautiful character of a young girl dead of consumption ; and both 
concluded with the ' hopes of an immortality through Jesus Christ.' 
And there was au old sword and sword-belt hung on the tomb of 
another, killed in Spain at the age of twenty-eight; he also was 
to be raised up through Jesus Christ; and this was the Gospel of 
Jesus Christ I was hearing — made into something worse than the 
cawing of rooks. I was glad to get out. for my thoughts rose into 
my throat at last, as if they would choke me; and I privately 
vowed never to go there when worship was going on again. 

We drove as usual in the evening, and also as usual played the 
game at chess — 'decidedly improper.' but I could not well refuse. 
I sat in my own room reading for two hours after I went upstairs; 
slept indifferently, the heat being extreme, and the cocks inde- 
fatigable; and now Mrs. Bullet has sent me her revised 'Play.' 
begging I will read it, and speak again my candid opinion as to its 
being fit to be acted. So goodbye, dearest, I shall have a letter to- 
morrow. Love to Babbie^ 1 I wish she had seen the Queen. 

Affectionately yours, 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 36. 

To T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

Troston: Wednesday, Aug. 17, 1842. 

Dearest, — There will be no news from me at Chelsea this day: it 
is to be hoped there will not be any great dismay in consequence. 
The fact is, you must not expect a daily letter; it occasions more 
trouble in the house than I was at first aware of; nobody goes from 
here regularly to the Post-office, which is a good two miles off; 
only, when there are letters to be sent. Mr. and Mrs. Buller take 
Ixworth in their evening drive and leave them at the post-office 
themselves. Now, twice over, I have found on getting to Ixworth 
that, but for my letters, there would have been no occasion to go 
that road, which is an ugly one, while there are beautiful drives in 
other directions; besides that, they like, as I observe, to show me 
the county to the best advantage. The.v write, themselves, hardly 
any letters; those that come are left by somebody who passes this 
way from Ixworth early in the morning. Yesterday after break- 
fast, Mr. Buller said we should go to Ampton in the evening — a 
beautiful deserted place belonging to Lord Calthorpe — ' unless,' he 
added, raising his eyebrows, ' you have letters to take to Ixworth.' 
Of course I said my writing was not so urgent that it could not be 
let alone for a day. And to Ampton we went, where Reginald and 
I clambered over a high gate, with spikes on the top of it, and en- 
joyed a stolen march through gardens unsurpassed since the origi- 
nal Eden, and sat in a pavilion with the most Arabian-tale-lookiug 
prospect; 'the Kingdom of the Prince of the Black Islands' it 
might have been! — and peeped in at the open windows of the old 
empty house — empty of people, that is — for there seemed in it 
everything mortal could desire for ease with diguity: such quanti- 
ties of fine bound books in glass bookcases, aud easy-chairs, &c, 
&c. ! And this lovely place Lord Calthorpe has taken some disgust 
to; and has never set foot in it again! Suppose you write ami ask 
him to give it to us! He is neariy mad with Evangelical religion, 
they say; strange that he does not see the sense of letting some- 
body have the good of what he cannot enjoy of God's providence 
himself! 'Look at this delicious and deserted place, on the one 
side, aud the two thousand people 5 standing all night before the 
Provost's door, on the other! Aud yet you believe,' says Mrs. 
Buller, ' that it is a good spirit who rules this world.' 

You never heard such strange discourse as we go on with, during 
the bour or so we are alone before dinner! How she contrives, 
with such opinions or no opinions, to keep herself so serene and 
cheerful, lam perplexed to conceive: h it the old story of the 
'cork going safely over the falls of Niagara, where everything 
weightier would sink'?' I do not think she is so light as she gives 
herself out for — at all events, she is very clever, aud very good to 
me. 

On our return from Ampton, we found Mr. Loft waiting to tea 
with us — the elder brother of the Aids-to Self-Development Loft — 
an affectionate, intelligent-looking man, but ' terribly off for a 
language.' 3 Though he has been in India, and is up in years, he 
looks as frightened as a hare. There were also here yesterday the 
grandees of the district, Mr. and the Lady Agnes Byng — one of the 
Pagets'whom we all know' — an advent which produced no in- 
considerable emotion in our Radical household! For my pari. I 
made myself scarce; and thereby ' missed,' Reginald told me, 
' such an immensity of petty talk — the Queen, the Queeu, at every 
word with Lady A.' 

1 Cousin Jeannie. 

- Paupers, probably, but I have forgotten the incident. 

3 Rev. Dr. Waugh. principal Scotch preacher in London, was noted.'among 
oilier things, for his kindness to poor incidental Scotchmen, who. in great 
numbers, applied to him for guidance, for encouragement, or whatever help 
he could give, in their various bits of intricacies and affairs here. One of 
these incidental clients, a solid old pedlar Cup on business,' second-hand, 
most probably) had come one day, and was talking with 'the mistress, who 
said, at one point of the dialogue: ' Well, Saunders, bow do you like the peo- 
ple here : J ' ' Oh, very weel. m'em: a nice weel-conditioned people, good-na- 
tured, honest, very clever, too, in business things; an excellent people— but 



LETTER 37. 

To T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

Troston: Saturday, Aug. 20, 1842. 
Oh dear me! how deceitful are appearances! Who would not 
say, to look at this place, that it was one of the likeliest places 
' here down ' on which to be ' poured out of a jug '? ' and the fact 
is, that sleep is just the one thing that is not to be had in sufficiency 
for love or money! Every night brings forth some new variety of • 
assassin to murder sleep! The animals here seem to be continually 
finding themselves iu a newposiliou! And the protests and ap- 
peals to posterity '-' that ensue, in shape of braying, lowiug, crow- 
ing, cackling, barking, howling, &c, are something the like of 
which I have not found in Israel! Last night it was hardly pos- 
sible for me to close my eyes amiuute together, with the passionate 
wailing of what seemed to be a most ill-used dog, not only (I 
fancied) excluded from its proper home, but also robbed of its 
young; another or two other such nights will send me home ' with 
my linger in my mouth to two people both alike gleg!' 3 Fori 
feel lhat no country air, or country diet, or country drives, or 
country anything, can make up for such deprivation of my natural 
rest, It was horrible really! — an everlasting wail as of 'infants in 
the porch M mixed up with howls of fury and denunciation, from 
eleven at night till six in the morning, when I trust in Heaven the 
poor brute fell down dead. And no whisper of it has siuce 
reached my ears; but 

Once give the fish a frying. 
What helps it that the river run? 5 

All is quiet now externally; but my heart is jumping about in 
me like Mrs. Grove's frog after the first drop of tea! In the few 
moments that I slept, I dreamt that my mother came to me, and 
said that she knew of 'a beautiful place where it was so quiet! ' — 
and she and I would go there by ourselves, for some weeks. But 
somehow we got into different railway trains; and when I could 
not find her any more, I screamed out, and awoke, 6 and the dog 
was giving a long howl. 

They are very anxious you would come, 'and bring Miss Jeannie 
along with you. Regy would be delighted to have a young lady ' 
— more delighted, I imagine, than the young lady would be to have 
Regy! although he does improve on acquaintance. Laziness, and 
w hat his mother calls 'muddliug habits,' are the worst things one 
can charge him with — one of the people who, with the best inten- 
tions, are always unfortunate;' but he is very sweet-tempered and 
kindly; deserves really the only epithet that remained to him — see- 
ing that there was already 'the clever Buller' aud 'the handsome 
Buller ' — viz. : ' the good Buller.' If he were not so completely the 
victim of snuff, I should think an attractive Babbie might lie bene- 
ficial to him; but I would as soon undertake the reformation of a 
drunkard as of anybody that snuffs as he does. 

If it were not for the sleeping part of the business, I would back 
Mrs. Buller's exhortations to you to come, with my own. But 
when one of us prospers so badly in that matter, I see not what 
would become of two! Write a line to Mrs. Buller herself, any- 
how, that she may not think her kind invitations quite overlooked. 

I shall return, I think, the week after next; if this dog goes on, 
sooner. They do not seem to be at all wearying of me; but it were 
too long if I waited to see symptoms of that. So far. 1 am confi- 
dent I have not been in their way, but quite the reverse; the chess 
is a great resource for Mr. Buller in the first loneliness occasioned 
by the loss of little Theresa; and Mrs. Buller seems to get some 
good of talking with me: as for Reginald, now that he has con- 
quered, or rather lhat I have conquered, his first terror, he does not 
seem to have anything to object to me very particularly. 
[Last leaf wanting.] 



terribly aff for a lang-aitch, m'em ! ' (This story was current in Edinburgh in 
my young time: Dr. Waugh|much the theme in certain circles there.) 

1 Driving up Piccadilly once, on a hot summer day, I had pointed out to her 
a rough human figure, lying prostrate in the Green Park, under the shade of 
a tree, and very visibly asleep at a furlong's distance. ' Look at the Irish- 
man yonder; in' what a depth of sleep, asif you had poured him out of a jug]' 
I still remember her bright little laugh, 

- ■ Vous §U s des injugtes? said a drunken man. whom boys were annoying; 
' je m'en appellea In pmteriti!' i One of Cavaignac's stories.) 

3 Wull Maxwell, Alibi's ploughman at Oaigenputtoek, one of the stupidest 
fellows I ever saw, had been sent on some message down the glen, for behoof 
of Alick. and 'That'll no duih for an answer.' Wull had said to the be-mes- 
saged party; 'wbat'll a duih wi' that for an answer, and twae men, baith 
alike gleg ' (acute, alerl : German, Mug), ' sitting waiting for me yonder? ' 
4 Continue audita 1 voces, vagitus et ingens, 
Infantumque anima? flentes in limine primo; 
Quos dulcis vitas exsortes, et ab ubere raptos, 
Abstulit atra dies, et funerc mersit acerbo. 

Virgil, Mneid, vL 426-430. 
6 Comforters. 

' Oh, cease this well-a-dayin^, 
Think of the faithful saying, 
"New joy when grief is done!" ' 

Job. 

' To mock me are you trying? 

Once give the fish a frying. 

What helps him that the river run ? ' 

Goethe. 
7 Phrase of brother John's. 



a Ah, me, what a dream 



/ 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS 

LETTER 38. 
To T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

Troston: Tuesday, Aug. 23, 1843. 

My dear Husband, — The pen was in my hand to write yes- 
terday; but nothing would have come out of me yesterday except 
' literature of desperation ;' ' and, aware of this, I thought it better 
to hold my peace for the next twenty-four hours, till a new night 
had either habilitated me for remaining awhile longer, or brought 
me to the desperate resolution of flying home for my life. Last 
night, Heaven be thanked, went off peaceably; and to-day I am in 
a state to record my last trial, witiiout danger of becoming too 
tragical, or alarming you with the prospect of my making an 
unseemly termination of my visit. (Oh, what pens!) 

To begin where I left off. On Sunday, after writing to you, I 
attended the afternoon service! Regy looked so wae when I an- 
swered his question 'whether I was going?' in the negative, that 
a weak pity induced me to revise my determination. ' It is a nice 
pew, that of ours,' said old Mr. Boiler; ' it suits me remarkably 
well, for, being so deep, I am not overlooked ; and iu virtue of that, 
I read most part of the Femme de Qualite this morning!' 'But 
don't,' he added, 'tell Mr. Regy this! Had Theresa been there, I 
would not have done it, for I like to set a good example! ' I also 
turned the depth of the pew to good account; when the sermon be- 
gan, I made myself, at the bottom of it, a sort of Persian couch out 
of the praying-cushions; laid off my bonnet, and stretched myself 
out very much at my ease. I seemed to have been thus just one 
drowsy minute when a slight rustling and the words ' Now to 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,' warned me to put on my bonuet, and 
made me for the first time aware that I had been asleep! For the 
rest, the music that day ought to have satisfied me; for it seemed 
to have remodelled itself expressly to suit my taste — Scotch tunes, 
produced with the nasal discordant emphasis of a Scotch country- 
congregation, and no clarionet. I noticed in a little square gallery- 
seat, the only one in the church, a portly character, who acts as 
blacksmith, sitting with a wand, some five feet long, iu his hand, 
which he swayed about majestically as if it had been a sceptre! On 
inquiring of our man-servant what this could possibly mean or 
symbolise, he informed me it was 'to beat the bad children.' 
' And are the children here so bad that they need such a function- 
ary? ' ' Ah, they will always, them little 'uus, be doing mischief in 
the church ; it's a- wearisome for the poor things, and the rod keeps 
them in fear! ' 

In the evening, the drive, as always, with this only difference, 
that on Sunday evenings Mr. Buller only walks the horse, from 
principle! After this conscientious exercising, the game at chess! 
My head had ached more or less all day, and I was glad to get to 
bed, where I was fortunate enough to get to sleep without any 
violent disturbance. The next day, however, my head was rather 
worse than better; so that I would fain have ' declined from' 2 calling 
on Lady Agnes ; but Mrs. Buller was bent on going to Livermere, and 
so, as I did not feel up to walking, it was my only chance of get- 
ting any fresh air and exercise that day. To Livermere we went, 
theu, before dinner, the dinner being deferred till five o'clock to 
suit the more fashionable hours of our visitees. 'The Pagets' 
seem to be extremely like other mortals, neither better nor bonnier 
nor wiser. To do them justice, however, they might, as we found 
them, have been sitting for a picture of high life doing the amiable 
and the rural in the country. They had placed a table under the 
shadow of a beech-tree; and at this sat Mr. Byng studying the 
' Examiner; ' Lady Agnes reading — ' Oh, nothing at all, only some 
nonsense that Lord Londonderry has been printing; I canuot think 
what has tempted him ; ' and a boy and girl marking for a cricket- 
party, consisting of all the men-servants, and two older little sons, 
who were playing for the entertainment of their master and mistress 
and their own; the younger branches ever and anon clapping their 
hands, and calling out ' What fun!' I may mention for your con- 
solation that Mr. Byng (a tall, gentlemanly, itose-looking man) was 
dressed from head to foot in unbleached linen; while Babbie may 
take a slight satisfaction to her curiosity de femme from knowing 
how a Paget attires herself of a morning, to sit under a beech-tree 
— a white-flowered muslin pelisse, over pale blue satin; a black lace 
scarf fastened against her heart with a little gold horse-shoe ; her 
white neck tolerably revealed, and set off with a brooch of dia- 
monds; immense gold bracelets, an immense gold chain; a little 
white silk bonuet with a profusion of blond and flowers; thus had 
she prepared herself for being rural! But, with all this finery, she 
looked a good-hearted, rattling, clever haveral* sort of a woman. 
Her account of Lord Londonderry's sentimental dedication to his 
wife was perfect — ' from a goose to a goose! ' — and she defended 
herself with her pocket handkerchief against the wasps, with an 
euergy. When we had sat sufficiently long under the tree, Mrs. 
Buller asked her to take me through the gardens, which she did 
very politely, and gave me some carnations and verbenas; and then 
through the stables, which were, indeed, the finer sight of the two. 

1 Litteratur der Verziveifiung was Goethe's definition of Victor Hugo and 
Co.'s new gospel. 

- The phrase of a rustic cousin of ours, kind of solemn pedant in his way. 

3 Good-humoured, foolish person. I should not wonder if* it came from 
Avril (which in old Scotch is corrupted into Averil, and even Haver Hill), and 
had originally ineant ' April fool. 1 



OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



57 



All this sight-seeing, however, did not help my head; at night I 
let the chess go as it liked ; took some medicine, and went early to 
bed, determined to be well on the morrow. About twelve, I fell 
into a sound sleep, out of which I was startled by the tolling of tin? 
church-bell. The church, you remember, is only a stone-cast from 
the house; so that, when the bell tolls, one seems to be exactly 
under its tongue. I sprang up — it was half after three by my watch 
— hardly light; the bell went on to toll two loud dismal strokes at 
regular intervals of a minute. What could it be? I fancied fire — - 
fancied insurrection. I ran out into the passage and listened at 
Regy's door, all was still; then I listened at Mrs. Buller's; I heard 
her cough; surely, I thought, since she is awake, she would ring her 
bell if there were anything alarming for her in this tolling, it must 
be some other noise of the many they ' have grown used to.' So I 
went to bed again, but, of course, could not get another wink of 
sleep all night; for the bell only ceased tolling at my ear about six 
in the morning, and then I was too nervous to avail myself of the 
silence. 'What on earth was that bell?' I asked Regy the first 
thing in the morning. 'Oh, it was only the passing bell! It was 
ordered to be rung during the night for an old lady who died the 
night before.' This time, however, I had the satisfaction of seeing 
Mrs. Buller as angry as myself; for she also had been much 
alarmed. 

Of course, yesterday I was quite ill, with the medicine, the sleep- 
lessness, and the fright; and 1 thought I really would not stay any 
longer in a place where one is liable to such alarms. But now, as 
usual, one quiet night has given me hopes of more; and it would be 
a pit} - lo_ return worse than I went away. I do not seem to myself 
to be nearly done; but Mr. Buller is sitting at my elbow with the 
chess-board, saying, 'When you are ready I am ready.' I am 
ready. Love to Babbie; I have your and her letter; but must stop. 

Ends so, without signature, on inverted top-margin of first leaf: 
day of the week is Tuesday, date August 23. 

LETTER 39. 
To T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

Trostou: Thursday, Aug. 25, 1842. 

Dear, — I hardly expected my letter from you this morning, so 
that I was all the gladder to find it beside my plate as usual. Along 
with it was one from Elizabeth Pepoli; the chief merit of which, 
besides the kindness of writing at all, is that " it expects no answer." 

I hope you have the same refreshing rain in Loudon which is re- 
viving our drooping spirits here; for it is easy to see, although you 
try to put the best face on everything for me at a distance, that you 
are suffering horribly from the heat. My only consolation in think- 
ing of your being iu the town and I in the country in such weather 
is, that if you might have felt a less degree of suffocation, sitting 
out of doors here during the day, certainly the improvement would 
have been counterbalanced by the superior suffocation of our nights. 
Even with door and window wide open, it is hardly possible to 
realise a breath of air; the cottage roof collects and retains the heat 
so very much more than any other sort of roof I ever lived under. 
After the first few days, I was obliged to give up remaining during 
the mornings iu my own room; my head got into a swimming con- 
dition, as when I poisoned myself with the charcoal. 1 Mrs. Buller, 
I find, goes out of her room into some back apartment; but even 
there I am sure the closeness is very hurtful to her. The drawing- 
room is the coolest place, and is left to myself till Mrs. Buller comes 
down; except for occasional inroads of Mr. Buller arid Regy to 
seek some volume of a French novel, repeated cargoes of which are 
sent for from Rolandi's. 'A very bad stock, this last,' I observed 
last night. 'Yes,' says Mr. Buller, raising his eyebrows; 'when 
French novels are decorous, they are monstrous stupid !' 

What do I think of Clifton? 2 What do you think? 'Plunges 
in the sea' — I am afraid it is not very conveniently situated for 
that; but if you were there, it would be the easiest thing to run 
over for a few days to your admiring Welshman, 3 who is really one 
of the sensiblest admirers you have; a man who expresses his en- 
thusiasm in legs of mutton and peaches, etc.. &c. I imagine he 
would make a better host than you think. Mrs. Buller says it is 
an excellent scheme, being so very easy to execute; ' nothing would 
be easier, except staying over September and November here, where 
I am already, and having you to join me! ' With such an extrav- 
agant invitation as this, I need not hesitate about staying another 
week from any apprehension of exhausting their hospitality. She 
says that she can quite sympathise with your nervous dislike to 
making up your mind; and what you have to do in such a mood is 
just to come off without making up your mind at all; the first cool 
morning to put yourself in the coach, without any previous engage- 
ment or determination. The only objection to this is that, without 
being warned, Mrs. Buller could not meet you at Bury; but there 
is another coach from London whicli passes through Ixworth (from 
which you could walk, being only two miles), 'and a coach,' she 
says. ' just made for you, being called the Phenomenon ! ' I deliver 

1 Dangerous silent accident at Craigenputtock. in 1828. from stooping to the 
floor in a room upstairs, where a chauffer was burning against damp. 

2 Invitation from a friend. 

3 Charles H. Redwood, Esq.. Llanblethian, Glamorganshire, called the 'Hon- 
est Lawyer' in those parts; a man whom I much esteemed and still regret. 



28 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



all this long message, without the expectation that you will lay it 
duly to heart. I am thankful to hear that the leg is in reality 
mending, for it has been a great detriment to my repose of consci- 
■ence while here; I should never have dreamt of leaving my post if 
I had forseen that there was to be such a long puddlement before it 
■healed. I cannot understand how it had gone back, for really it 
Was almost closed when I left. 

You may tell Babbie that my ardour for nightcap muslin, that 
morning, was the most superfluous in nature; for except twice, to 
mend a hole in my black silk stockings, I have not had a needle in 
my hand since I left London, nor ' wished to.' Neither have I so 
much as wound the skein of silk for my purse. I do little in the 
way of reading, and of writing as you know, and a great deal of 
nothing at till. I never weary, and yet there is no company comes, 
and, except the evening drive and the chess, we have no amuse- 
ments. The chess, however, is getting into the sphere of a passion. 
Mr. Buller ' does not remember when lie had such good playing as 
this;' and so, to make hay while the sun shines, he must have a 
game before dinner as well as the one after tea. Sometimes a game 
will last two hours, and then there are generally three hours con- 
sumed in the drive; so that there remains no more time on my 
hands than 1 can rind ways and means to get rid of without calling 
in the aid of needlework. Last night we drove to a place called 
New House; which is in fact a very old house, bearing the date 
1612. The wainscoat and floors were polished to such a pitch with 
wax and turpentine, that I am certain I could have skated on them! 
The Lady, a married sister of Mr. Loft's, showed me an original 
portrait of ' Fergusson, the self-taught Philosopher, who had been 
her mother's preceptor': I was ashamed to ask, 'What does't 
doe?' 1 I never heard of him in my life. There were various 
pictures besides — Queen Elizabeth, Charles II., and honourable 
women not a few. To-night we are to go, if it fairs, to take tea at 
a show place called The Priory, belonging to ' Squire Cartwright.' 
Mrs. Buller is infinitely kind in her exertions to rind me amuse- 
ment. Bless thee, 

Your own Jane. 

[One other letter followed from Troston. In a day or two more 
I went thither myself; walked about, nothing loth (as far as Thet- 
ford one day), sometimes with escort, oftener with none. Made at 
last (mainly by Mrs. Buller's contrivance, and delicate furtherance), 
'till Charles should come,' a riding tour into Cromwell's Country; 
which did me much benefit in the future Book, and was abundantly 
impressive at the time, as indeed in memory it still is, strangely 
vivid in all its details at this day. Saw Hinchinbrook for the first 
time, St. Ives, Godmanchester (Ely, Soham, &c); from Godman- 
chester to Cambridge trotted before a thunder cloud, always visible 
behind, which came down in deluges half a minute after I got into 
the Hoop Hotel, &c, &c. Can have lasted only about four days 
(three nights)! Can it be possible? I seem as if almost a denizen 
of that region, which I never saw before or since. — T. C] 

LETTER 40. 

Follows Troston, seemingly at short distance. Good old Mr. 
Dobie's visit (Rev. Emeritus, Mrs. Dr. Russell's father) I remember 
well, and that it was in her absence. He never ' came back.' Letter 
is infinitely mournful to me, and beautiful in a like degree. 

The ' Margaret ' is Margaret Hiddlestone, whom she wanted for 
a servant, but could not get. — T. C. 

To Mrs. Russell, Thortihill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Sept. 1842. 
My dear Mrs. Russell,— I meant to have written to you yesterday, 
along with my letter to Margaret; — but how to write to you with 
out mentioning the purport of my writing to her, and how very 
much I had it at heart that she should come! And then if it so 
happened that she applied to you for advice, as is likely enough, 
and that your real opinion was she had better remain with her 
children? Between the two you were thus, it seemed to me, going 
to find yourself in a constraint, in which it was hardly fair to place 
you. But now this morning comes another consideration (I have 
such a way of tormenting myself with all sorts of out-of-the-way 
considerations!), viz., that you might think it unkind of me to send 
a letter to your care without a word, and unkindness towards you is 
what I could not bear to lie under the smallest suspicion of even 
for a moment. Oh, no. my dear Mrs. Russell, though I should 
never see you more, nor hear from you more, I shall think of you, 
and love you, and be grateful to you as long as I live. But for the 
knowledge of what you did for her,- and how thankfully she felt 
it, I know not how I should ever have brought myself to think of 
her last weeks with any degree of composure. As it was, God 
knows there still remains enough to feel eternal regrets about .— 
but without a friend like you, to make her feci that she was not 
quite alone with her sickness and her vexatious, it would have been 
unspeakably worse for her then, and for me now. 

1 Anne Cook's question, when ' Lord Jeffrey,' having called, she reported 
him ' Lurcherfleld (to general amazementl) and, getting rebuked- 'But what 
is a " Looard " then > What diz'l duili ? ' 

2 She means her mother. 



How grieved I was that I happened to be absent during your 
father's stay in London! I felt somehow as if he had come from 
her — had brought me kind messages from her, and I had missed 
him! 1 would have returned immediately on purpose to see him; 
but they knew that I would, and so did not tell me until it was too 
late. But he will come again, having found how easy it is, will he 
not, and bring you with him? Oh, I should like so well to have 
you here! 

I am always very weakly in health, though better than when I 
last wrote to you. At present my brother-in-law has put me on a 
course of blue-pill for pain in my side. But, until I turn what 
health and strength I have to better account, I have no business to 
regret that I have not more. 

1 wish you would write to me some day, and tell me about old 
Mary and all the people. Thornhill and Templand and everything 
about there is often as distinct before my eyes as the house and 
street I am actually living in — but as it was; as it must be now, I 
can never bring myself to figure it. 

Give my kindest regards to your father and husband. I felt 
your father's letter very kind. 

God bless you, dear Mrs. Russell. 

Ever your affectionate 

Jake W. Carltle. 

LETTER 41. 

Fragment (very mournful), first small half of it lost. 
To Mrs. Aitken, Dumfries. 

Chelsea: (Early Summer) 1843. 
What you say of my coming to Scotland is very kind; Isabella, 
too, has sent me the heartiest invitations, and I should like so well 
to see you all again. But when I try to fancy nvyself on the road, 
to fancy myself there, everything the same for me there as it used 
to be — and beyond, nothing of all that used to be — 1 feel so sick at 
heart, and so afraid of encountering the pain that seeing all those 
places again, and going about like a ghost in them, would cause me, 
that I can do no otherwise but say I will not go. It looks very 
cowardly to you, this? — perhaps, too, unkind and ungrateful to- 
wards the living. But fancy yourself in my place, looking out on 
the hills, at the back of which there had so lately lain a little loving 
home for you, where your mother had run to meet you with such 
joy; and now nothing for you there but the silence of death. If 
you do not feel that you would be just as weak, at least you will 
understand how I might be so without unkindness. If I were going 
beside your mother and all of you, I should think myself bound to 
be cheerful, and to look as if I were happy among you; and until 
I know myself up to that, is it not right to stay away? At present 
it seems to me I could do nothing at Scotsbrig or Dumfries but 
cry from morning till night. All this is excessively weak; I am 
quite aware of that, and if anybody will show me a way of being 
stronger, I will follow it to my best ability: but merely telling me 
or telling myself to be stronger is of no use. 

Ever your affectionate 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 42. 

To Miss Helen Welsh, Liverpool. 

Chelsea: March 1843. 

My dearest Helen, — After (in Dumfries and Gallozeay-Courier 
phraseology) ' taking a bird's-eye view ' of all modern literature, I 
am arrived at the conclusion that, to find a book exactly suited to 
my uncle's taste, I must write it myself! and, alas, that cannot be 
done before to-morrow morning! 

' La Motte Foque's "Magic Ring,"' suggests Geraldine 1 (Jews- 
liurv). ' Too mystical ! My uncle detests confusion of ideas.' 
' Paul de Kock? he is very witty.' ' Yes, but also very indecent; 
and my uncle would not relish indecencies read aloud to him by his 
daughters.' 'Oh! ah! well! Miss Austin?' 'Too washy; water- 
gruel for mind and body at the same time were too bad.' Timidly, 
and after a pause, ' Do you think he could stand Victor Hugo's 
"Notre Dame"?' The idea of my uncle listening to the senti- 
mental monstrosities of Victor Hugo! A smile of scorn was this 
time all my reply. But in my own suggestions I have been hardly 
more fortunate. All the books that pretend to amuse in our day 
come, in fact, either under that category, which you except against, 
' the extravagant, clown-jesting sort,' or still worse, under that of 
what I should call the galvanised -death's-head-grinning sort. There 
seems to be no longer any genuine, heart-felt mirth in writers of 
books; they sing and dance still vigouretisement, but one sees always 
too plainly that it is not voluntarily, but only for halfpence; and for 
halfpence they will crack their windpipes, and cut capers on the 
crown of their heads, poor men that they are! 

I bethink me of one book, however, which we have lately read 
here, bearing a rather questionable name as a book for my uncle, 
but, nevertheless, I think he would like it. It is called ' Passages 
from the Life of a Radical,' by Samuel Bamford, a silk-weaver of 

1 Miss Geraldine Jewsbury, with whom Mrs. Carlyle had just become ac- 
quainted, remained her most intimate friend to the end of her life.— J. A. F. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



29 



Middleton. He was one of those who got into trouble during the 
Peterloo time; and the details of what he then saw and suffered are 
given with a simplicity, an intelligence, an absence of everything 
like party violence, which it does one good to fall in with, especially 
in these inflated times. 

There is another book that might be tried, though I am not sure 
that it has not a little too much affinity with water-gruel, ' The 
Neighbours,' a domestic novel translated from the Swedish by Mary 
Howitt. There is a 'Little Wife' in it, with a husband whom she 
calls ' Bear,' that one never wearies of, although they never say or 
do anything in the least degree extraordinary. 

Geraldine strongly recommends Stephen's ' Incidents of Travel in 
Egypt, Arabia, and Petrea,' as 'very interesting and very short.' 
Also Waterton's ' Wanderings in South America.' There are two 
novels of Paul de Kock translated into English, which might be 
tried at least without harm done, for they are unexceptionable in 
the usual sense of that term, the ' Barber of Paris,' and ' Sister Anne.' 
I have read the last, not the first, and I dare say it would be very 
amusing for anyone who likes 'Gil Bias,' and that sort of books; 
for my taste it does not get on fast enough. 

There! enough of books for one day. Thank you for your let- 
ter, dear. If I had not wee angels to write me consolatory mis- 
sives at present, I should really be terribly ill off. My maid 
continues highly inefficient, myself ditto; the weather complicates 
everything; for days together not a soul comes, and then if the sun 
glimmers forth a whole rush of people breaks in, to the very taking 
away of one's breath! 

Yesterday, between the hours of three and five, we had old 
Sterling, Mr. and Mrs. von Glelien, Mr. and Mrs. Macready, John 
Carlyle, and William Cunningham. Geraldine professed to be 
mightily taken with Mrs. Macready, not so much so with 'Wil- 
liam! Poor dear William! I never thought him more interesting, 
however. To see a man, who is exhibiting himself every night on 
a stage, blushing like a young girl in a private room is a beautiful 
phenomenon for me. His wife whispered into my ear, as we sat 
on the sofa together, ' Do you know poor William is in a perfect 
agony to-day at having been brought here in that great-coat ? It is 
a stage great-coat, but was only worn by him twice; the piece it 
was made for did not succeed, but it was such an expensive coat, 
I would not let him give it away; and doesn't he look well in it ? ' 
I wish Jeannie had seen him in the coat — magnificent fur neck and 
sleeves, and such frogs on the front. He did look well, but so 
heartily ashamed of himself. 

Oh, I must tell you, for my uncle's benefit, a domestic catas- 
trophe that occurred last week! One day, after dinner, I heard 
Helen lighting the fire, which had gone out, in the room above, 
with a perfectly unexampled vengeance; every stroke of the poker 
seemed an individual effort of concentrated rage. What ails the 
creature now ? I said to myself. Who has incurred her sudden dis- 
pleasure ? or is it the red herring she had for dinner which has 
disagreed with her stomach? (for in the morning, you must know, . 
when I was ordering the dinner, she had asked, might she have a 
red herring? 'her heart had been set upon it this a good while 
back; ' and, of course, so modest a petition received an unhesitating 
affirmative.) On her return to the subterranean, the same hubbub 
wild arose from below, which had just been trying my nerves from 
above; and when she brought up the tea-tray, she clanked it on the 
lobby-table as if she were minded to demolish the whole concern at 
one fell stroke. I looked into her face inquiringly as she entered 
the room, and seeing it black as midnight (morally, that is), I said 
very coolly, ' A little less noise, if you please; you are getting rather 
loud upon us.' She cast up her eyes with the look of a martyr at 
the stake, as much as to say, ' Weil, if I must be quiet, I must; but 
you little know my wrongs.' By-and-by Geraldine went to the 
kitchen for some reason; she is oftener in the kitchen in one day 
than I am in a month, but that is irrelevant. ' Where is the cat ? ' 
said she to Helen; 'I have not seen her all night.' She takes a 
wonderful, most superfluous charge of the cat, as of everything 
else in this establishment. ' The cat! ' said Helen grimly, ' I have 
all but killed her.' 'How?' said Geraldine. 'With the besom,' 
replied the other. ' Why ? for goodness' sake.' 'Why! ' repeated 
Helen, bursting out into new rage; 'why indeed? Because she 
ate my red herring! I set it all ready on the end of the dresser, and 
she ran away with it, and ate it every morsel to the tail— such an 
unheard of thing for the brute to do. Oh, if I could have got hold 
her, she should not have got off with her life!' 'And have you 
had no dinner?' asked Geraldine. 'Oh, yes, I had mutton 
enough, but I had just set my heart on a red herring.' Which was 
the most deserving of having a besom taken to her, the cat or the 
woman ? 

My love to Babbie ; her letter to-day is most comfortable. Bless- 
ings on you all. 

Your affectionate cousin, 

J. Welsh. 

LETTER 43. 

To Miss Helen Welsh, Liverpool. 

Chelsea: March 1843. 
Now, do you deserve that I should send you any letter, any 
autograph, anything, thou graceless, 'graceful Miss Welsh' ? I 



think not; but 'if everyone had his deserts, which of us should 
escape whipping? ' And besides I see not what virtues remain 
possible for me, unless it be the passive ones of patience and for- 
giveness; for which, thank Heaven, there is always open course 
enough in this otherwise tangled world! 

Three of the autographs, which I send you to-day, are first-rate. 
A Yankee would almost give a dollar apiece for them. Entire 
characteristic letters from Pickwick, Lytton Buhver, and Alfred 
Tennyson; the last the greatest genius of the three, though the 
vulgar public have not as yet recognised him for such. Get his 
poems if you can, and read the 'Ulysses,' 'Dnra,' the 'Vision of 
Sin.' and you will find that we do not overrate him. Besides he is 
a very handsome man, and a noble-hearted one, with something of 
the gypsy in his appearance, which, for me, is perfectly charming. 
Babbie never saw him, unfortunately, or perhaps I should say for- 
tunately, for she must have fallen in love with him on the spot, 
unless she be made absolutely of ice; and then men of genius have 
never anything to keep wives upon! 

Jane Caiilyle. 

LETTER 44. 
To John Sterling, Esq., Falmouth, 

Chelsea: June(?) 1843. 

My dear John, — Thank you passionately for giving me Yitloria 
Accoramboni; and thank you even more for knowing beforehand 
that I should like her. Your presentiment that this was ' a woman 
exactly after my own heart ' so pleases my own heart! proves that 
I am not universally 'a woman misunderstood.' But you said 
nothing of the man after my own heart, so that Bracciano took me 
by surprise, and has nearly turned my head! My very beau-ideal 
of manhood that Paul Giordano; could I hear of the like of him 
existing anywhere in these degenerate times, I would, even at this 
late stage of the business — send him — my picture! and an offer of 
my heart and hand for the next world, since they are already dis- 
posed of in this. Ah! what a man that must be, who can strangle 
his young, beautiful wife with his own hands, and, bating one 
moment of conventional horror, inspire not the slightest feeling. of 
aversion or distrust! When a man strangles his wife nowadays he 
does it brutally, in drink, or in passion, or in revenge; to transact 
such a work coolly, nobly, on the loftiest principles, to strangle with 
dignity because the woman ' was unworthy of him,' that indeed is 
a triumph of character which places this"Bracciano above all the 
heroes of ancient or modem times; which makes me almost weep 
that I was not born two centuries earlier, that I might have been — 
his mistress — not his wife! 

But what think you befel? In the simplicity of my heart I lent 
the book to a friend, a man of course, whose hitherto version of 
me has borne a considerable resemblance to the Santa Maria; lent 
it too with all my marginal marks (as Carlyle would say) ' signifi- 
cant of much'! And when the man 1 brought it back he could 
neither look at me nor speak to me; but blushed and stammered, as 
if he were in the presence of a new goddess of reason. Disliking 
all that sort of thing, 1 asked him plain out, what ailed him? ' The 
truth is,' said he, 'Mrs. Carlyle, that book' (looking at it askance) 
' has confused me ! May 1 ask who recommended to you that book? ' 
' A clergyman,' said I; for the first and probably the last time in 
my life recognising your sacred vocation; ' John Sterling gave it to 
me.' ' The son? ' ' Yes, to be sure, the son,' and then I laughed 
outright, and the man looked at me with a mingled expression of 
pity and alarm, and changed the subject. 

Jane Caklyle. 

Fragments of letters. to T. Carlyle, July 1843. 

The house in Cheyne Row requiring paint and other re-adjust- 
ments, Carlyle had gone on a visit to Wales, leaving his wife to en- 
dure the confusion and superintend the workmen, alone with her 
maid. — J. A. F. 

July 4, 1843. — The first night is over, and we are neither robbed 
nor murdered. I must confess, however, that I observed last night 
for the first time with what tremendous facility a thief with the 
average thief agility might swing himself, by laying hold of the 
spout, off the garden wall into my dressing closet, leaving me no 
time to spring my rattle, or even unsheath my dagger. ' You must 
excuse us the day ; ' I am in a complete mess, and my pen refuses to 
mark. I shall be in a complete mess for a time, times and a half. 
I will perhaps go for a few days to the Isle of Wight, for breathing, 
in the midst of it; but I shall not be done with my work this month 
to come. You see you do so hate commotion that this house gets 
no periodic cleanings like other people's and one must make "the 
most of your absence. 

July 11. — It has been such a morning as .you cannot figure: a 
painter filling the house with terrific smells, the whitewashes still 
whitewashing, Pearson and men tearing out the closet, and the boy 
always grinding with pumice stone. Having been taught politeness 
to one's neighbours by living next door to Mr. Chalmers. I wrote a 
note to Mr. Lambert, No. 6, regretting that his and his family's 
slumbers were probably curtailed by my operations, and promising 



1 Can't guess what ' man.' 



30 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



that the nuisance would have only a brief term. This brought Mr. 
Lambert upon me (virtue ever its own reward), who stayed for an 
hour, talking, you know how. Then I. . . . And you do not 
like my beautiful ' Vittoria '! oh, what want of taste! 

July 12. — If you had seen me last night asleep you would have 
seen a pretty sight. The paint was smelling, of course — one can't 
make a household revolution, any more than a State one, with rose 
water; and so this house did not smell of rose water, I can assure 
you. Old Sterling had said so much about its costing me my life, 
and the absolute necessity of my at least sleeping at his house, that 
I did begin to think it my cause me a headache! So I took all wise 
precautious against it, kept my door carefully shut all day, and 
slept with both my windows open, so that, I really suffered very little 
inconvenience from the smell. But just when I was going to bed, 
it occurred to me that in this open state of tilings, with several 
ladders lying quite handy underneath the window, 'heavy bodies 
might,' as Helen phrased it, ' drop in,' and be at my pillow before I 
heard them; so, feeling it my duty to neglect no proper precaution, 
I laid my dagger and the great policeman's rattle on tile spare pillow 
and went to sleep quite pleasantly, without any more thought about 
thieves. 

I have got such a pretty writing establishment — a sort of gipsy's 
tent, which I have mounted in the garden 'with my own hands,' 
constructed out of the clothes rope and posts ami the crumb cloth 
of the library! I sit under its 'dark brown shade — wh ' ' — the 
Macready of Nature — an armchair, and the little round table, with 
my writing msterials, and my watch to keep me in mind that I am 
in a time world, a piece of carpet under foot, and a foot stool. Be- 
hold all that is necessary for my little garden house! Woman 
wants but little here below — an old crumb cloth mainly, you per- 
ceive. But one has no credit in being jolly in such a pretty 
bower. By-and-by I shall have to return indoors, ' to come out 
strong.' 

July 17. — Toutmbien. The work goes well, and myself goes 
■well. The early rising and the shower-bathing and the having 
something to look after agrees with me wonderfully. The degree- 
of heat, also is exactly suited to my needs. This and the other per- 
son drops in and asks me if I do* not feel very lonely? It is odd 
what notions men seem to have of the scantiness of a woman's 
resources. They do not find it anything out, of nature that they 
should be able to exist by themselves; but a woman must always 
be borne about on somebody's shoulders, and dandled and chirped 
to. or it is supposed she will fall into the blackest melancholy. 
When I answered that question from Arthur Helps yesterday, 
' Why should I feel lonely? I have plenty to do, and can see human 
beings whenever I look out at the window,' he looked at me as if I 
had uttered some magnanimity worthy to have place in a ' Legiti- 
mate Drama,' and said, ' Well, really you are a model of a wife.' 

LETTER 45. 
To John Welsh, Esq., The Baths, Helensburgh. 

Chelsea: July 18, 1843. 

Dearest, dear only Uncle of me, — I would give a crown that you 
could see me at this moment through a powerful telescope! You 
would laugh for the next twelve hours. I am doing the rural after 
a fashion so entirely my own! To escape from the abominable 
paint-smell, and tin- infernal noise within doors, I have erected, 
with my own hands, a gipsy-tent in the garden, constructed with 
clothes lines, long poles, aud an old brown floor cloth ! under which 
remarkable shade I sit iu an arm-charm at a small round table, with 
a hearth rug for carpet under my feet, writing-materials, sewing- 
materials, and a mind superior to Fate! 

The only drawback to this retreat is its being exposed to 'the 
envy of surrounding nations'; so many heads peer out on me from 
all the windows of the Row. eager to penetrate my meaning! If I 
had a speaking trumpet I would address them once for all:— 
•Ladies and Gentlemen, — I am not here to enter my individual pro- 
test against the progress of civilization! nor yet to mock you with 
an Arcadian felicity, which you have neither the taste nor the in- 
genuity to make your own! but simply to enjoy Nature according 
to ability, and to' get out of the smell of new paint! So, pray you", 
leave me to pursue my innocent avocations in the modest seclusion 
which I covet! ' 

Not to represent my contrivance as too perfect, I must also 
tell you that a strong puff of wind is apt to blow down the 
poles, and then the whole tent falls down on my head! This 
has happened once already since I began to write, but an instant 
puts it all to rights again. Indeed, "without counteracting the 
indoors influences by all lawful means, I could not stay here at 



1 ' Dark brown shade ' was to both of us infinitely ridiculous in this place, 
though the spirit ef it is now (led irrevocably. Dr. Ritchie, divinity professor 
iu Edinburgh, was a worthy, earnest, but somewhat too pompous and con- 
sciously eloquent, old gentleman. lie had no teeth, a great deal of white hair, 
spoke in a sonorous, mumbling voice, with much proud, almost minatory, 
wagging of the head, and to a rhythm all his own. which loved to end always 
with an emphatic syllable, with victorious grave accent, and a kind of ' wh.' 
or 'h,' superadded. For confutation of Gibbon, his principal argument— the 
only one that I can recollect— was that Gibbon in his later years, grown rich, 
famous. ,vr 4c., confessed that the end of life to him was involved in a 
'dark brown shade— wh.' 



present without injury to my health, which is at no time of the 
strongest. Our house has for a fortnight back been a house pos- 
sessed by seven devils! a painter, two carpenters, a paper-hanger, 
two nondescript apprentice-lads, and ' a spy ; ' all playing the devil 
to the utmost of their powers; hurrying aud scurrying 'upstairs, 
downstairs, and in my lady's chamber! ' affording the liveliest im- 
age of a sacked city ! 

When they rush iu at six of the morning, and spread themselves 
over the premises, I instantly jump out of bed, and 'in wera des- 
peration ' take a shower bath. Then such a long day to be virtuous 
iu! I make chair aud sofa covers; write letters to my friends; 
scold the work-people, and suggest improved methods of doing 
things. And when I go to bed at night I have to leave both win- 
dows of my room wide open (and plenty of ladders lying quite 
handy underneath), that I may not, as old Sterling predicted, 
' awake dead ' of the paint. 

The first night that I lay down in this open state of things, I 
recollected Jeaunie's house-breaker adventure last year, and, not 
wishing that all the thieves who might walk iu at my open win- 
dows should take me quite unprepared, I laid my policeman's 
rattle and my dagger on the spare pillow, and then I went to sleep 
quite secure. But it is to be confidently expected that, in a week 
or more, things will begin to subside into their normal state; and 
meanwhile it were absurd to expect that any sort of revolution can 
be accomplished. There I the tent has been down on the top of me 
again, but it has only upset the ink. 

Jeannie appears to be earthquaking with like energy in Mary- 
land Street, but finds time to write me nice long letters neverthe- 
less, and even to make the loveliest pincushion for my birthday; 
and my birthday was celebrated also with the arrival of a hamper, 
into which I have not yet penetrated. Accept kisses ad infinitum 
for your kind thought of me, dearest uncle. I hope to drink your 
health many times in the Madeira 1 when I have Carlyle with me 
again to give an air of respectability to the act. Nay, on that 
evening when it came to hand, I was feeling so sad and dreary 
over the contrast between this Fourteenth of July — alone, in a 
house like a sacked city, and other Fourteenths that I can never 
forget, that I hesitated whether or no to get myself out a bottle of 
the Madeira there and then, and try for once in my life the hith- 
erto unknown comfort of being dead drunk. But my sense of the 
respectable overcame the temptation. 

My husband litis uow left his Welshman, and is gone for a little 
while to visit the Bishop of St. David's. Then he purposes cross- 
ing over somehow to Liverpool, and, after a brief benediction to 
Jeannie, passing into Anuandale. He has suffered unutterable 
things in Wales from the want of any adequate supply of tea! 
For the rest, his visit appears to have been pretty successful; 
plenty of sea-bathing; plenty of riding on horseback, and of lying 
under trees! I wonder it never enters his head to lie under the 
walnut-tree here at home. It is a tree! leaves as green as any 
leaves can be, even in South Wales! but it were too easy to repose 
under that: if one had to travel a long journey by railway to it, 
then indeed it might be worth while! 

But I have no more time for scribbling just now ; besides, my 
pen is positively declining to act. So, God bless you, dear, and all 
of them. Ever your affectionate 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 46. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., at Llandough, Cowuridge. 

Chelsea: July 18, 1843. 
Dearest, — I take time by the pigtail, and write at night after 
post-hours. During the day there is such an infernal noise of 
pumice-stone, diversified by snatches of 'wild strains;' the youth 
who is scraping the walls (as if it were a hundred knife-grinders 
melted into one) consoling himself under the hideous task by strik- 
ing up every two minutes 'The Red Cross Knight,' or ' Evelyn's 
Bower,' or some such plaintive melody, which, after a brief at- 
tempt to render itself 'predominant,' ' dies away into unintelligible 
whinner.' 2 Yesterday forenoon Mrs. Chadwick came; andhad 
just seated herself on the sofa beside me. and was beginning to set 
forth amiabilities; when bang, bang, crash, screech, came the 
pumice-stone over the room-door, to the tune 

Oh rest thee, my darling, 
Thy sire is a knight; &c, &c, 

making us both start to our feet with a little scream and then fall 
back again in fits of laughter. Then the stairs are all flowing 
with whitewash, and 'altogether' when I fancy you here 'in the 
midst of it,' I do not know whether to laugh, or to cry, or to 
shriek. 

But it will be a clean pretty house for you to come home to; and 
should you find that I have exceeded b} r a few pounds your modest 
allowance for painting aud papering, you will rind that I have not 
been thoughtless nevertheless, when I show you a document from 
Mr. Morgan, 3 promising to 'indemnify us for the same in the tin- 



1 Present sent from Liverpool. 

5 My father's account of a precentor who lost his tune, desperately tried 
several others, and then ' died away into an,' &c. 
3 Lawyer in the city ; virtual proprietor here. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



31 



disturbed possession of our house for five years! ' A piece of paper 
equivalent to a lease of the house for five years, 'with the reci- 
procity all on , One side,' binding him and leaving us free. ' Such a 
thing,' old Sterling said, who attended me to Pope's Head Alley, 
'as no woman but myself would have had the impudence to ask, 
nor any lawyer in his senses the folly to grant.' I do not see but 
we might get a lease of the house after all for as long as we pleased, 
if /went about it, instead of the vo\upchio>ts Perry. 1 This was 
one of those remarkable instances of fascination which I exercise 
over gentlemen of a ' certain age; ' before I had spoken six words 
to him it was plain to the meanest capacity that he had fallen over 
head and ears in love with me; and if he put off time in writing 
me the promise I required, it was plainly only because he could 
not bear the idea of my going away again! No wonder! probably 
no such beatific vision as that of a real live woman, in a silk bonnet 
and muslin gown, ever irradiated that dingy, dusty law-ch amber 
of his, and sat thereon a three-feet-high stool, since he had held 
a pen behind his ear; and certainly never before had either man or 
woman, in that place, addressed him as a human being, not as a 
lawyer, or he would not have looked at me so struck dumb with 
admiration when I did so. For respectability's sake, I said, in 
taking leave, that ' my husband was out of town, or he would have 
come himself.' 'Better as it is,' said the old gentleman, 'do you 
think I would have written to your husband's dictation as I have 
done to yours? ' He asked me if your name were John or William 
— plainly he had lodged an angel unawares. 

By the way, that other angel '' is becoming a bore. Charles 
Barton, with whom I dined at Sterling's in returning from 
Pope's Head Alley, told me that he had been making quite a 
sensation in Berlin, and been invited to a great many places, on the 
strength of the 'French Revolution.' He (Charles B.) was asked 
to meet him— that is 'Thomas Carlyle, author of "The French 
Revolution"' at the Earl of Westmoreland's 'Is he here?' said 
Charles; ' I shall be delighted to see him, I know him quite well;' 
and accordingly, on the appointed day, he ' almost ran into the 
arms of the announced Thomas Carlyle, and then retreated with 
consternation.' It was so far good that he had an opportunity to 
disabuse these people at least by declaring ' that was not Thomas 
Carlyle at all ! ' But is it not a shame iu the creature to encourage 
the delusion, and let himself be fSted as a man of genius when he is 
only a 'crack-brained enthusiastic '? 3 

I have awoke at four every morning since you went away; and 
the night before last I slept just half an hour in all; it is always the 
effect of finding one's self in a new position. When the workpeo- 
ple come at six, I get up, which makes a prodigiously long day ; 
but I do not weary, having so many mechanical things to do. This 
morning I took, or rather failed to take, a shower bath; I pulled 
with concentrated courage, and nothing would come ; determined 
not to be quite baffled, however, I made Helen pour a pitcherful of 
water on me instead. 

Mazzini came this forenoon, for the first time; very pale and 
weak, but his face pretty well mended. He was horribly out of 
spirits; and no wonder. They have brought out the 'British and 
Foreign Review' without his article!! a most untimely contretemps 
for him, in an economical point of view ; and besides very mortify- 
ing to him morally, as he is sure it is ' merely because of his being 
a foreiguer that he is so ill-used.' I was strongly advising him to — 
run away, to hide himself from all people, friends and creditors, and 
disciples, in Switzerland or some cheap, quiet place; and I should 
not wonder if he did some such thing iu the end — a man cannot 
live ' in a state of crisis ' (as he calls it) for ever. 

I do not see how I am to get to the Isle of Wight. I cannot 
leave the house with workpeople coming and going; and Helen de- 
clares, naturally, that without me she could not stay a night in the 
house for the whole world. But I daresay I am quite as content 
here, studious of household goods, as I should be, dragged about 
to look at picturesque views, at the Isle of Wight, or anywhere else 
that ' fool 4 creturs go for diversion ; ' but London, be it. e'er so hot. 
is ne'er too hot for me! 5 To-day we have had the beautifullest soft 
rain, to make all fresh again; and on the whole, the weather is 
charming; and I never go into the dusty streets on foot. Good 
night. 

Saturday. — Well! you cannot come back here just now at all 
rates, that is flat. What think you of going to this ? Here in- 
deed you would not ' come out strong' under the existing circum- 
stances. It is only I who can be ' jolly ' in such a messof noise. 
dirt, and wild dismay! I said to the lad in the lobby this morn- 
ing, who was filling the whole house with ' Love's young dream: ' 
' How happy you must feel, that can sing through that horrible 
noise you are making! ' 'Yes, thank you, ma'am,' says he, 'I am 
happy enough so far as I knows; but I's always a-singing anyhow! 
it sounds pleasant to sing at one's work, doesn't it, ma'am? ' ' Oh, 
very pleasant,' said I, quite conquered by his simplicity, 'but it 
would be still pleasanter for me, at. least, if you would sing a song 



1 Pedant carpenter and house agent here; characterised the unthrift of the 
poor by that adjective. 
3 ' T. Carlyle,' of the Irvineite Church, lone a double-ganger of mine. 

3 My father's epithet for Mrs. Carrnthers. long ago. 

4 Definition of poetry, ' Pack o' lies, that fuil craitures write for,' &c. 

5 Mrs. Siddons, replying to her host, apologetic for his salt fish: 'Fish, be it 
ne'er so salt,' &c. 



from beginning to end, instead of bits here and there.' 'Thank 
you, ma'am,' says he again, ' I will try ! ' But he does uotsucceed. 

I have the most extraordinary letter from * * *, which I would 
send, only that it would cost twopence of itself. He writes to tell 
me that 'he did not like his reception,' that 'often as he came and 
long as he stayed, I treated him indeed with perfect civility, did 
not yawn, or appear to be suppressing a yawn; but 1 seenie'd to 
labour under a continual feeling of oppression! and to be thinking 
all the while of something else! ' ' What did I see to offend me in 
him? ' he asks me with great humility; from what he heard of pre- 
ferences and saw of my society, he was inclined to suppose that what 
I objected to in him must be the want of that first great requisite 
earnestness. But he begged to assure me, &c. , etc.— in short, that 
he had as much earnestness ' as he could bear ' ! ! A letter from a 
man calling himself bishop to a woman whom he calls infidel, and 
pleading guilty to her of want of earnestness — Bah! I wish I could 
snort like Cavaignac. 

There, now 1 must stop. I daresay I have wearied you. God 
keep you, dear. Be quite easy about me. Ever yours 

J. C. 

LETTER 47. 

Cuttikins (old Scotch word for spatterdashes, ' cuits ' signifying 

feet) means*****, now became 'Bishop,' so-called,' 'of ' 

(title we used to think analogous to great Mogul of London?), 
in whose episcopal uniform, unsuitable to the little bandy-legged 
man, the spats were a prominent item. Indisputable man of talent 
and veracity, though not of much devoutness, of considerable 
worldliness rather, and quietly composed self-conceit — gone now, 
ridiculously, into the figure of 'a bandy-legged black' beetle,' as 
was thought by some. 

' Old Morrah,' or Murrough, was on Irish surgeon of much sense 
and merit, well accepted by the Sterlings and us. 

The policeman's ' rattle ' was a thing she actually had on her 
night-table at this time. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., at Carmarthen. 

Chelsea: Thursday, July SO, 1843. 

Dearest,— I quite fretted, last night, at your having been cheated 
out of your letter. D'abord, I had a headache; but that was not 
the reason, for it was not an even-down headache, under which no 
woman can write; I could have written, better or worse; but I put 
off, thinking always I should get into ' a freer and clearer state ' ' be 
fore the post left; and, as the copy-line says, 'procrastination is the 
root of all evil.' From two till four 1 had visitors, and not of free 
and easy sort who could be told to go away and return at a more 
convenient season; first, Mrs. Prior 5 and her companion Miss 
Allan, the primmest pair; but meaning well, and making me a long 
first visit of ceremony, in testimony of Mrs. Prior's sense of my 
'goodness to her poor brother.' 

By the way, I really believe that I have been the instrument, 
under Providence, of saving old Sterling's life. I told you how 
Dr. Fergusson seemed to me to be ruining him with recom- 
mendations of ' a plentiful use of porter, wiiie, and other stimu- 
lants to restore the tone of his nervous system ( !) Then he re- 
commended him vapour baths. I saw him after his first bath, 
all scarlet as a lobster and pale as milk by turns, and shivering 
and burning by turns. I had an uncomfortable feeling about 
him all the evening; was not sure whether I ought not to write 
to John; he looked to me so much in danger of some sudden 
stroke. Two days after, he came and told me he had been twice 
cupped; had been so ill that he had himself proposed the thing 
to Fergusson, who approved. Now this was quite enough to 
show what sort of person this Fergusson must be, feeding a man 
up with porter and wine, and cupping him at the same time. 
I told Sterling most seriously that he looked to me in a very criti- 
cal state; and that if he did not go home, and send at once to old 
Morrah, who was no quack, and had never flattered his tastes, I 
would not answer for his living another week. He was furious at 
my suspicion of Fergusson; but on the way home thought better 
of it, and did send for Morrah; who immediately proceeded to 
scour him with the most potent medicines. Morrah called for me 
two days ago, and said that he did not think he could have gone 
on another week under Fergusson's system, without a stroke of 
apoplexy; that his pulse was a hundred and thirty and his tongue 
quite black. Now he is sleeping well, and much better every way. 

After Mrs. Prior, came the Dundee Stirlings, and the sister who 
is going to India. I liked the big bald forehead and kind eyes of 
Stirling very much indeed. He looks a right, good fellow. They 
are to return to Dundee in a few days. But the most unexpected, 
the most stroke-ofthunder visitor I have had was Cuttikins!! 3 I 
declare when Helen told me he was below, I almost sprung the rat- 
tle. I had not answered his letter, had made up my mind not to 
answer it at all; a man puts one in quite a false position who de- 
mands an explanation of one's coldness — coldness which belongs to 
the great sphere of silence; all speech about it can only make bad 
worse. Was he come there because, like , he ' had found it so 

1 Brother John's favourite phrase. 3 Elder Sterling's sister. 

3 See preface to this letter. 



33 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



easy ' to ssk me for an answer? Was the small chimera gone out 
of his wits? When I came clown, though outwardly quite calm, 
even indifferent, I was in a serious trouble. He put me speedily at 
ease, however, by telling me that he had been sent for express, to 
see his aunt, who had thought herself dying (and from whom he 
has expectations); she was now recovering, and lie hoped to be able 
to go back in a few days — I hope so, too. I said I had not an- 
swered his letter, because it seemed to me that was the best way to 
counteract the indiscretion of his having written it; that, 'al- 
though, as a. man much older than myself, and a dignitary of the 
church, heought to be wiser than I, I could not help telling him 
that I had learned a thing or two. which he seemed to be still in 
ignorance of — among the rest, that warmth of affection could not 
be brought about by force of logic' He said ' I was right, and he 
did not design to bore me this thine,' and so we parted with polite 
mutual tolerance. But you may figure the shock of having that lit- 
tle Cuttikins descend from the blue so suddenly when I was rely- 
ing on seeing no more of him for three years. 

Only think what human wickekness is capable of! Some devils 
broke into Pearson's workshop the night before last, and stole all 
the men's tools. The poor creatures are running about, lost, their 
occupation quite gone. They have never any money laid by, so 
they cannot buy new tools till they get money, and they cannot 
make money till they get tools. It is the cruellest of thefts — a 
man's tools. Last night six or seven pounds' worth of glass was 
cut out of a new house — out of the windows that is to say. 

Your letter is just come; I thank you for never neglecting me. 
Yesterday looked sach ablank day; no letters came, as if in sym- 
pathy with your silence. You must feel something of a self-con- 
stituted impostor in your present location. I have a good many lit 
tie things to do, and an engagement with Mrs. Prior, who is to 
come to take me a drive at two o'clock. Oh, if you could mend 
me some pens! Bless you, dearest. Your own 

J. C. 

LETTER 48. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., at Liverpool, 

Chelsea: Monday night, July 31, 1843. 

Dearest, — The postman presented me your letter to-night iu 
Cheyne Walk, with a bow extraordinary. He is a jewel of a post- 
man; whenever he has put a letter from you into the box, he both 
knocks and riugs, that not a moment may be lost in taking posses- 
sion of it. In acknowledgment whereof, I crossed the street one 
day, when Cuttikins, who stayed a week and returned twice, was 
with me, and at that moment doing the impossible to be entertain- 
ing, for the purpose of saluting his (the postman's) baby, which he 
Was carrying out for an airing. The rage of Cuttikins at this inter- 
ruption was considerable; he looked at me as if he could have eaten 
me raw. and remarked with a concentrated spleen, ' Well, I must say, 
never did I see any human being so improved in amiability as you 
are. Everybody and everything seems to be honoured with a par- 
ticular affection from you.' ' Everything,' thought I, 'except you;' 
but I contented myself with saying, 'Isn't it a darling baby?' Poor 
Cuttikins, his aunt did not die; so he is gone with the prospect of 
— alas! — of having to return ere long. The last day he came, John 
Sterling exploded him in a way that would have done your heart 
good to see. John looked at me as much as to say, ' Does he bore 
you?' and I gave my shoulders a little shrug in the affirmative; 
whereupon John jumped to his feetandsaid in a polite undertone, 
as audible, however, for the Bishop as for me, ' Well, my good 
friend, if you cannot keep your engagement with nip, I must go by 
myself — I am too late already.' The cool assurance of this speech 
was inimitable, for I had no engagement iu the world with him; 
hut the bishop, suspecting nothing, sprang to his feet, and was off 
iu a minute with apologies for having detained me. 

Well, I actually accomplished my dinner at the Kay Shuttle- 
worths'. Mrs. was the only lady at dinner; old Miss Rogers 

and a young tecrxh looking ' person witli her, came in the evening; 
it was a very locked-jaw sort of busiuess. Little Helps was there, 
but even I could not animate him; he looked pale and as if he had 
a pain in his stomach. Milnes was there, and 'affable' enough, 
but evidently overcome with a feeling that weighed on all of us — 
the feeling of having been dropped into a vacuum. There were 
various other men, a Sir Charles Lemou, Cornewall Levis, and 
some other half dozen insipidities, whose names did not fix them- 
selves in my memory. Mrs. was an insupportable bore; she 

has surely the air of a retired unfortunate female; her neck and 
anus were naked, as if she had never eaten of the Tree of the 
Knowledge of Good and Evil! Sheremiuded me forcibly of the 
Princess Huucamunca, as I once saw her represented iu a barn. 
She ate and drank with a certain voracity, sneezed once during the 
dinner, just like a bale old man. ' and altogether ' nothing could be 
more ungraceful, more uufeminine than her whole bearing. She 
talked a deal about America, and her poverty with exquisite bad 
taste. Indeed, she was every way a displeasing spectacle to me. 

Mazzini's visit to Lady Baling (as he calls her) went off wonder- 
fully well. I am afraid, my dear, this Lady Baring of yours, 
and his, and John Mill's, and everybody's, is an arch coquette. 



1 Waterish, au emphatic Scotch word. 



She seems to have played her cards with Mazziui really too well; 
she talked to him with the highest commendations of George Sand, 
expressed the utmost longing to read the new edition of 'Lelia'; 
nay, she made him 'a mysterious signal with her eyes, having first 
looked two or three times towards John Mill and her husband,' 

clearly intimating that she had something to tell him about 

which they were not to hear; and when she could not make him 
understand, she ' shook her head impatiently, which from a woman, 
especially in your England, was — what shall I say? — confidential, 
upon my honour.' I think it was. John Mill appeared to be lov- 
ing her very much, and taking great pains to show her that his 
opinions were right ones. By the way, do you know that Mill 
considers Robespierre ' the greatest man that ever lived,' his 
speeches far surpassing Demosthenes' ? He begins to be too absurd, 
that John Mill! I heard Milnes saying at theShuttleworths' that 
' Lord Ashley was the greatest man alive; he was the only man 
that Carlyle praised in his book.' I dare say he knew I was over- 
hearing him. 

Iain quite rid of the paint-smell now; but I have the white- 
washer coming again to-morrow. I could not turn up the low 
room till the upstairs one was in some sort habitable again, and all 
last week, nothing could be got on with, owing to Pearson's ab- 
sence. It is surprising how much easier it is to pull down things 
than to put them up again. 

LETTER 49. 

Welsh Tour done. Leaving Liverpool for Scotsbrig I get this. 
— T. C. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., at Liverpool. 

Chelsea: Thursday, Aug. 3, 1843. 

Dearest, — If you go on board to-night, this letter will reach you 
no sooner than if written to-morrow and addressed to Scotsbrig; 
but if you do not, and to-morrow there be a second day for you 
without any news, you will be ' vaixed;' and on no account must 
you be vaixed if one can possibly help it. I caunot, however, make 
much of writing to-day; for it is thundering and raining in a quite 
soul-confusing manner; that in the first place, then, in the second, 
I have a headache. Last night the Stick-woman, who is always 
showing me small civilities, brought me a present of ass's milk 
(God knows where she got hold of the ass to milk it!), and she 
bade Helen tell me that if I would please to drink it to my supper, 
I should feel great benefit in the morning. I drank it, more for 
curiosity than for any superiority I could taste in it over cow's 
milk; and awoke, after two hours' sleep, with such a headache, and 
such a detestation of ass's milk! I was able to get up early to my 
breakfast; but am not recovered yet, nor shall be till I have had a 
night's sleep. I did myself no good by cleaning the lamp in the 
morning. It had ceased to act some time ago, and was beginning 
to lie heavy on mj' conscience, besides that light is one of the things 
I do not like to economise iu, when I am alone; just the more alone 
I am, the more light I need, as I told Darwin, the night he drank 
tea with me, and, when the lamp was brought in, remarked that 
' it was surely far too much light for a single woman '! Darwin, 
by the way, has gone out of sight latterly; it is a fortnight, I am 
sure, since he was here; he talked then of paying a visit to his 
brother and then going to the Mackintosh's. 

I am sitting in the upstairs room now, while the earthquake is 
rumbling beneath it, and this and the thunder together are almost 
too much for me. They have washed the ceilings, and Helen is 
now washing the paint, and doing the impossible to clean the paper 
with bread. ' Ah ! ' it takes such a quantity of labour, for a man 
quite inconceivable, to make what is dirty look one shade more near 
to clean. But here it is all quite clean, and so pretty! 1 feel like a 
little Queen sitting in it, so far as what Mazzini calls ' the material ' 
is concerned; indeed, I suppose no Queen ever got half the comfort 
out of a nice room; Queeus being born to them as the sparks fly 
upwards. There are still some finishing strokes to be given, the 
book-shelves all to be put up, and the window curtains; aud a deal 
of needlework has to go to the last. But when all is done, it will 
be such a pleasure to receive you and give you tea iu your new 
library! when you have exhausted the w T orld without. 

Thanks for your constant little letters; when you come back, I 
do not know how I shall learn to do without them, they have come 
to be as necessary as any part of my ' daily bread.' But, my dear, 
I must stop, you see that my head is bad, and that I am making it 
worse. 

Bless you, 

Yours, J. C. 

LETTER 50. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., at Scotsbrig. 

Pier Hotel, Ryde: 1 Wednesday morning, Aug. 9, 1843. 
Dearest, — Here I actually am, and so far as has yet appeared, ' if 
it had not been for the honour of the thing,' I had better have stayed 
where I was. The journey hither was not pleasant the least in the 
world. What journey ever was or shall lie pleasant for poor me? 
But this railway seems to me particularly shaky, and then the steatn- 

1 Mrs. Carlyle had gone to Ryde with old Mr. Sterling. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



33 



boating from Gosport, though it had not time to make me sick 
— the water, moreover, being smooth as the Thames — still made 
me as perfectly uncomfortable as need be ; a heavy dew was fall- 
ing; one could ,not see many yards ahead; everybody on board 
looked peevish. I wished myself at home in my bed. 

We reached Ryde at eight in the evening, and, the second hotel 
being filled, had to take up our quarters for that night at the first, 
which ' is the dearest hotel in Europe.' and the hotel in Europe, so 
far as I have seen, where there is the least human comfort. I had 
to make tea from an urn the water of which was certainly not ' as 
hot as one could drink it;' 1 the cream was blue milk, the butter 
tasted of straw, and the ' cold fowl ' was a lukewarm one, and as 
tough as leather. After this insalubrious repast — which the Stima- 
bile, 2 more easily pleased than I, pronounced to be ' infinitely re- 
freshing, by Jove!'— finding that, beyond sounding the depths of 
vacuum, there was nothing to be done that night, I retired to my 
bed. The windows looked over house-roofs and the sea, so I hoped 
it would be quiet; but, alas, there was a dog uttering a volley of 
loud barks, about once in the five minutes; and rousing up what 
seemed to be a whole infinitude of dogs in the distance! Of course, 
fevered and nervous as I was at any rate from the journey, I could 
not sleep at all; I do not mean that I slept ill, but I have absolutely 
never been asleep at all the whole night! So you may fancy the 
favourable mood I am in towards Ryde this morning! 1 feel as if I 
tvould not pass another night in that bed for a hundred pounds! 

Nor shall I need. Clark 3 has been out this morning to seek a 
lodging; and has found one, he says, very quiet, quite away from 
the town. If I cannot sleep there, I will return to my own red bed 
as fast as possible. I did not bind myself for any specified time. 
To Helen I said I should most likely be back in three or four days; 
but in my own private mind, I thought it possible I might make 
out a week. It was best, however, to let her expect me from day 
to day; both that she might get on faster and that she might suffer 
less from her apprehension of thieves, for she flattered herself 
nobody would kuow I was gone before I should be returned. I 
left Elizabeth with her, with plenty of needlework to do; alone, 
she would have gone out of her senses altogether, and most proba- 
bly succeeded in getting the house robbed. 

And now let me tell you something which you will perhaps 
think questionable, a piece of Hero- Worship that I have been 
after. My youthful enthusiasm, as John Sterling calls it, is not 
extinct then, as I had supposed; but must certainly be immortal! 
Only, think of its blazing up for Father Mathew ! You know I 
have always had the greatest reverence for that priest; and when I 
heard he was in London, attainable to me, I felt that I must see 
him, shake him by the hand, and tell him I loved him consider 
ably! I was expressing my wish to see him, to Robertson, the 
night he brought the Ballad Collector; 4 and he told me it could be 
gratified quite easily. Mrs. Hall had offered him a note of intro- 
duction to Father Mathew, and she would be pleased to include 
my name in it. 'Fix my time, then.' ' He was administering the 
pledge all day long in the Commercial Road.' I fixed next eveniug. 

Robertson, accordingly, called for me at five, and we rumbled off 
in omnibus, all the way to Mile End, that hitherto for me unimagi- 
nable goal! Then there was still a good way to walk; the place, 
the 'new lodging,' was a large piece of waste ground, boarded off 
from the Commercial Road, for a Catholic cemetery. I found ' my 
youthful enthusiasm ' rising higher and higher as I got on the 
ground, and saw the thousands of people all hushed into awful 
silence, with not a single exception that I saw — the only religious 
meeting 1 ever saw in cockneyland which had not plenty of scof- 
fers hanging on its outskirts. The crowd was all in front of a 
narrow scaffolding, from which an American captain was then 
haranguing it; and Father Mathew stood beside him, so good and 
simple-looking! Of course, we could not push our way to the 
front of the scaffold, where steps led up to it; so we went to one 
end, where there were no steps or other visible means of access, 
and handed up our letter of introduction to a policeman ; he took 
it and returned presently, saying that Father Mathew was coming. 
And he came; and reached down his hand to me, and I grasped it; 
but the boards were higher than my head, and it seemed our com- 
munication must stop there. But 1 have told you that I was in a 
moment of enthusiasm; I felt the need of getting closer to that 
good man. I saw a bit of rope hanging, in the form of a festoon, 
from the end of the boards ; I put my foot on it ; held still by Fa- 
ther Mathew's hand; seized the end of the boards with the other; 
and, in some, to myself (up to this moment), incomprehensible 
way, flung myself horizontally on to the scaffolding at Father Mat- 
hew's feet! He uttered a scream, for he thought (I suppose) I 
must fall back; but not at all; I jumped to my feet, shook hands 
with him and said — what? ' God only knows.' He made me sit 
down on the only chair a moment; then took me by the hand as if 
I had been a little girl, and led me to the front of the scaffold, to 
see him administer the pledge. From a hundred to two hundred 
took it; and all the tragedies and theatrical representations I ever 



1 Lady mistress and guests have sat down to tea; bntler is summoned up in 
haste: ' John, John, how is this? Water iu the urn not boilingl' John (at- 
tempts to deny, then finding he cannot): ' A weel, me'm; I kenna whether it's 
a'together boiling, A'm sure it's hetter than you can drink it I ' and retires 
with the feeling of a maltreated man. 

' See note p. 8. 3 The valet. ' Peter Buchan, poor phantasm I 



saw, melted into one, could not have given me such emotion as 
that scene did. There were faces both of men and women that 
will haunt me while I live; faces exhibiting such concentrated 
wretchedness, making, you would have said, its last deadly strug- 
gle with the powers of darkness. There was one man, in particu- 
lar, with a baby iu his arms; and a young girl that seemed of the 
' unfortunate ' sort, that gave me an insight into the lot of humanity 
that I still wanted. And in the face of Father Mathew, when one 
looked from them to him, the mercy of Heaven seemed to be laid 
bare. Of course I cried; but I longed to lay my head down on the 
good man's shoulder and take a hearty cry there before the whole 
multitude! He said to me one such nice thing. 'I dare not be 
absent for an hour,' he said; 'I think always if some dreadful 
drunkard were to come, and me away, he might never muster de. 
termination perhaps to come again in all his life; and there would 
be a man lost ! ' 

I was turning sick, and needed to get out of the thing, but, in 
the act of leaving him — never to see him again through all time, 
most probably — feeling him to be the very best man of modern 
times (you excepted), I had another movement of youthful enthu- 
siasm which you will hold up your hands and eyes at. Did I take 
the pledge then? No; but I would, though, if I had not feared it 
would be put in the newspapers! No, not that; but I drew him 
aside, having considered if I had any ring on, any handkerchief, 
anything that I could leave with him in remembrance of me, and 
having bethought me of a pretty memorandum-book in my reti- 
cule, I drew him aside and put it in his hand, and bade him keep 
it for my sake; and asked him to give me one of his medals to 
keep for his! And all this iu tears and in the utmost agitation! 
Had you any idea that your wife was still such a fool! I am sure 
I had not. The Father got through the thing admirably. He 
seemed to understand what it all meant quite well, inarticulate 
though I was. He would not give me a common medal, but took a 
little silver one from the neck of a young man who had just taken 
the pledge for example's sake, telling him he would get him another 
presently, and then laid the medal into my hand with a solemn 
blessing. I could not speak for excitement all the way home. 
When I went to bed I could not sleep; the pale faces I had seen 
haunted me, and Father Mathew's smile; and even, next morning, 
I could not anyhow subside into my normal state, until I had sat 
down and written Father Mathew a long letter — accompanying it 
with your 'Past and Present!' Now, dear, if you are ready to 
beat me for a distracted Gomeril ' I cannot help it. All that it was 
put into my heart to do, Ich konnte nicht ariders. 

When you write, just address to Cheyne Row. I cannot engage 
for myself being here twenty-four hours longer; it will depend on 
how I sleep to-night; and also a little on when I find Elizabeth 
Mudie Q will be needed in Manchester. I must be back in time to 
get her clothes gathered together. 

Bless you always. Love to them all. 

Your J. C. 

I began this in the hotel ; but it has been finished in our lodging, 
which looks quiet and comfortable so far. 

LETTER 51. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., at Scotsbrig. 

Eyde: Friday, Aug. 11, 1843. 

Dearest,— The skyrocket will be off to-morrow morning, on the 
strength of its own explosiveness; the red-hot poker may stay till 
it has burnt a hole in its box, if it like! 'Oh! what had I to do 
for to travel? I was well, I would be better, and I am here! ' To 
be sure, Ryde is a place well worth having seen, and knowing 
about with a view to future needs; but what I get out of it for the 
time being, mm, is sleeplessness, indigestion, and incipient despair. 

I finished my letter to you the first thing I did on taking posses- 
sion of the lodging. It (the lodging) looked passable enough, so 
far; a small but neat sitting-room, with two bed-rooms, of which 
the' roomiest was assigned to me — plainly in the expectation that I 
should modestly prefer the inferior one. But not at all ; my mo- 
desty remained perfectly passive;— for I knew that he could have 
had two bed rooms equally good for two or three shillings a week 
more ; and if he chose to make a sacrifice of comfort for so paltry 
a saving, I was resolved it should be of his own comfort, not 
mine. 

I went to bed in fear and trembling. I do think another 
such night as the preceding would have thrown me into brain fever; 
but I slept, mercifully, not well, but some. On looking, however, 
at my fair hand in the morning, as it lay outside the bed-clothes, I 
perceived it to be all — 'what shall I say?' 'elevated into inequal- 
ities,' * ' significant of much !' Not a doubt of it, I had fallen among 
bugs! My pretty neck too, especially the part of it Babbie used to 
like to kiss, was all bitten infamously; and I felt myself a degraded 



1 Scotch for good-natured fool. 

a One of two girls in difficult circumstances, for whom, with her sister 
Juliet Mrs. Carlyle was endeavouring to provide (see p. 38).— J. A. F. 

3 Euphemism of a certain rustic goose (in our Craigenputtock time) to ex- 
press the condition of his brow bitten by midges. The preceding locution is 
established Maizinian; the following clearly mine. 



u 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



Qoody, as well as a very unfortunate one. As I sat, exceedingly low, 
at something which, in the language of flattery, we called break- 
fast, Clark brought me your letter and one from Babbie and three 
from Geraldine (who always outdoes you all); administering com- 
fort each after a sort, but Geraldine's most, for they offered me the 
handsomest pretext for returning home suddenly. One of her let- 
ters was to announce the safe arrival of Juliet Mudie, whom she 
expressed herself outrageously pleased with; the other two were to 
say that I must get Elizabeth off immediately, as the lady could not 
wait; and in case of missing me, she had written to this effect to 
Chelsea and Ryde at the same time. I was not to mind clothing 
her; all that could be done there; if I was absent, I must employ 
Mazzini or somebody to see her off. But I was too glad of the ex- 
cuse, to dream of employing anybody; besides, one always does 
one's own business bestoueself; should she miss the thing, through 
any interference from the mother or other hindrance which my 
presence could have obviated, who knows but it might be the losing 
of her whole chances in life! Sol wrote to her instantly to go 
home and take leave of her mother on receiving my letter (to-day), 
and make one or two small preparations, which were indispensable 
unless she should go among strangers like a beggar — which, of 
course, poor thing, being very handsome or whether or no, she 
would not like to do; and that "I would be there to-morrow, to take 
her to the railway to-morrow evening. Meanwhile I am getting 
together one decent suit of clothes for her in the Isle of Wight. 
That is what I call taking time by the middle. 

To day I have another letter from you, as a sort of marmalade to 
one's bad bread and tea-urn skimmed-milk tea. Do you know, I 
pity this poor old man. The notion of saving seems to be growing 
into a disease with him; and he has still a sufficient natural sense 
of what looks generous, and even magnificent, to make it a very 
painful disease. He is really pitiable in every way; and if it were 
possible for me to stay with him, I would out of sheer charity. He 
is incapable of applying his mind to reading or writing or any earthly 
thing. And he cannot move about to 'distract himself as he used 
to do, he suffers so much from incessant pain in one of his thighs. 
He cannot even talk, for every minute needing to roar out, ' This is 
torture, by Jove!' 'My God, this is agony,' &c. &c. He always 
Will go out to walk, and then for hours after he pays the penalty of it. 

I went this morning (while a man was taking down my bedstead 
to look for the bugs, which were worse last night, of course, having 
found what a rare creature they had got to eat), and investigated 
another lodging, which Clark had taken for us, and Sterling gave 
it up, for no other reason one could imagine, than just because 
Clark had taken it, and he likes to do everything over again him- 
self. I thought it would be good to know something about lodg- 
ings here, in case you might like to try it next time. 

Ryde is certainly far the most beautiful sea-bathing place I ever 
saw; and seems to combine the conveniences and civilisation of 
town with the purity and quiet of the country in a rather success- 
ful manner. The lodging I looked at was quite at the outside of 
the town: a sitting-room and two bed-rooms, in the house of a 
single lady; the sitting-room beautiful, the bed-rooms small, but, in 
compensation, the beds very large; good furniture, and, I should 
expect, good attendance, 'sitting ' in a beautiful garden, villa-wise, 
rejoicing in 1 lie characteristic name of Flora Cottage; and within 
two minutes' walk of the sea and romantic-looking bushy expanses; 
a very superior place to Newby, and the cost just the same — two 
guineas a week. God knows whether there be bugs in it. There 
is no noise; for the lady remarked to me, par hasard, that she 
sometimes felt frightened in lying awake at night, it was so still; 
nothing to be heard but the murmuring of the sea. We might ' put 
this in our pipe' for next year; and I shall look about farther dur- 
ing this my last day. I wonder John never recommended Wight 
to you with any emphasis; it must surely have some drawback 
■which I have not discovered; for it seems to me a place that would 
suit even you. And now, dear, if you think my letter hardly worth 
the reading, remember that I am all bug-bitten and bedevilled and 
ouUof my latitude, 

Your own 

J. C. 

Kind remembrances to all; a kiss to my kind, good Jamie. 

[We never went to Ryde; we once tried Brighton, once inspected 
Bournemouth, &c, but the very noises, in all these pretty sea- 
places, denoted flat impossibility, especially to one of us. How 
heavenly, salutary, pure is silence; how unattainable in the mad 
England that now is I— T. C] 

LETTER 52. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., at Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea : Sunday, Aug. 13, 1843. 
Dearest, — I have not for a long time enjoyed a more triumphant 
moment than in 'descending' 1 from the railway yesterday at Vaux- 
hall, and calling a porter to carry my small trunk and dressing box 
(of course) to a Chelsea steamer! To be sure, I looked (and felt) as 
if just returning from the Thirty-years' War. Sleepless, bug-bitten, 



Note, p. 25. 



bedusted and bedevilled, I was hardly recognisable for the same 
trim little Goody who had left that spot only four days before; but 
still I was returning loith my shield, not on it. A few minutes 
more, and I should be purified to the shift, to the very skin — should 
have absolutely bathed myself with eau de Cologne — should have 
some mutton-broth set before me (I had written from Ryde to be- 
speak it!), and a silver spoon to eat it with (these four days had 
taught me to appreciate my luxuries), and prospect of my own red 
bed at night! That of itself was enough to make me the most 
thankful woman in Chelsea! 

Helen screamed with joy when she saw me (fori was come about 
an hour sooner than I was expected), and then seized me round the 
neck and kiosed me from ear to ear. Then came Bessie Mudie, 
with her head quite turned. She could do nothing in the world 
but laugh for joy, over her own prospects so suddenly brightened 
for her; and from consciousness of her improved appearance, in a 
pair of stays and a gown and petticoat which she had got for her- 
self here by my directions. And when I showed her the shawl and 
other little tilings I had fetched her from Ryde, she laughed stHl 
more, and her face grew so very red that I thought she was going 
to burst a blood-vessel. She had been home, and had taken leave 
of her mother — no hindrance there whatever, but was extremely 
thankful. So all was in readiness for taking her to the railway 
that evening according to programme. 

Mazzini called just when I had finished my dinner to inquire if 
there had been any news from me; and was astonished to find my- 
self; still more astonished at the extent to which I had managed to 
ruin myself in so short a time: I looked, he said, ' strange, upon my 
honor! — most like,' if he might be allowed to say it, ' to Lady Mac- 
beth in the sleeping scene! ' No wonder! Four such nights might 
have made a somnambulant of a much stronger woman than me, 
poverina. 

At half after seven I started with Bessie forEuston Square; com- 
mitted her to the care of a very fat benevolent-looking old man, who 
was going all the way; pinned her letter for Geraldine to her stays; 
kissed the poor young creature, and gave her my blessing; came 
back wondering whether these two girls that I had launched into 
the world would live to thank me for it, or not rather wish that I 
had tied a stone about each of their necks and launched them into 
the Thamesl Impossible to predict! So I went to bed and was 
asleep in two minutes! 

After some hours of the deadest sleep I ever slept on earth, I was 
wakened with pain in my head; but where I was I could not possi- 
sibly make out. I sat up in the middle of my bed, to ascertain my 
locality, and there ' I happened ' ' the oddest mystification you can 
fancy: I actually lost myself in my bed! could not find the right 
way of lying down again! I felt about, for pillows, none were find- 
able! and I could not get the clothes spread upon me again! They 
seemed to be fixed down. At last, still groping, witli my hand, I 
felt the footboard at my head! I had lain down 'with my head 
where my feet should he;' and it was a puzzling business to rectify 
my position! I went to sleep again, and rose at half after eight; 
and took my coffee and good bread with such relish! Oh, it was 
worthwhile to have spent four days in parsimony: to have been 
bitten with bugs; to have been irritated with fuss and humbug, and 
last of all to have been done out of my travelling expenses back! it 
was worth while to have had all this botheration to refresh my sense 
of all my mercies. Everything is comparative 'here down;' this 
morning I need no other Paradise than what I have: cleanness (not 
of teeth), modest comfort, silence, independence (that is to say, de- 
pendence on no other but one's own husband). Yes, I need to be 
well of my headache, over and above; but that also will come, with 
more sleep. 

I found on my return three book-parcels and your last letter: 
parcel first, John Sterling's ' Strafford ' for myself; you will see a 
review of it in to-day's 'Examiner,' which will make him desper- 
ately angry (Really Fuzz, 8 that brother of ours, improves by keep- 
ing sensible company); second, Varnhagen's three volumes from 
Lockhart, with a note which I enclose; third, a large showy paper 
book in three volumes, entitled 'The English Universities,' Hunter 
and Newman, ' With Mr. James Heywood's compliments ' on the 
the first page. At night another parcel came from Maurice, ' Ar- 
nold's Lectures ' returned, and Strauss (which latter I purpose read- 
ing — I?). I brought with me from Ryde a volume of plays by one 
Kleist (did you ever hear of him?) which Sterling greatly recom- 
mends. The tragedian himself had the most tragic end. 3 

I did not forget about the name of Varnhagen's pamphlet; but at 
the time you asked it of me it was lying at the bottom of the sofa, 
with the other books of the low room and Pelion on Ossa on the top 
of it; to get at it would have cost me an hour's hard work. The name, 
now it is~restored to the upper world, is Leitfaden zur Nordisclten 
Alterthumskunde. 

I have a negotiation going on about a place for Miss Bolte; 4 but 
the lady is on "the Continent, and it cannot be speedily brought to an 

'Maid at Ampton Street: 'Tbis morning, m'em, I've 'appened a misfor- 
tune, m'em ' (viz. broken something). 

a Forster, then editor, or critic, of the Examiner. 

3 Killed himself. 

* This was a bustling, shifty little German governess, who, in few yeara, 
managed to pick up some modicum of money hei'e, and then retired with it to 
Dresden, wholly devoting herself to 'literature.' 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



35 



alternative Meanwhile the poor girl is gone to some friend in the 
country, for a month. I am very sorry indeed for poor Isabella. 
Give her my kind remembrances — my sympathy, if it could but do 
anything for her. 

Are you — or rather would it be very disagreeable for you — to go 
to Thornhill, and see the Russells. and Margaret, and old Mary? If 
you could without fiudiug it irksome, I should like. Oh, to think 
of your going to Thornhill to see only the Russells! ' Oh, my 
mother, my own mother. 

Monday, Aug. 14. — I had to give up writing yesterday, my head 
was so woefully bad. But a dinner of roast mutton, with a tumb- 
ler of white wine negus, made me a more effectual woman again; 
you see I am taking care of myself with a vengeance! Bat I ' con- 
sider it my duty' to get myself made well again — and to tell you 
the truth I was starved at Ryde, as well as bug bitten. 

In the evening I had Miss Bolte till after ten (I thought she had 
gone to the country, but she goes to-day), she is really a fine manly 
little creature, with a deal of excellent sense, and not without plenty 
of German enthusiasm, for all so humdrum as she looks. 

This morning. I got up immensely better, having had another good 
sleep; and, in token of my thankfulness to Providence, I fell im- 
mediately to glazing and painting with my own hands (not to ruin 
you altogether). It is now just on post-time. I have had your let- 
ter, for consolation in my messy job, and I must send this off; 
trusting that you found other two letters from me waiting you on 
coming back; and then return to finish my painting. Pray forme. 

Ever your unfortunate, 

Goody. 

LETTER 53. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., at Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea: Thursday, Aug. 17, 1843. 
I write to-day, dearest, without any faculty for writing; merely 
to keep your mind easy, by telliug you I have a headache; if I said 
nothiug at all, you might fancy I had something worse. 'Ah' — I 
could not expect to get off from that vile Wight business so cheaply 
as with one headache or even two. 

Since.I wrote last, I have had a sad day in bed, another only a 
little less sad out of it; besides the pain in my head, such pains in 
my limbs that I could hardly rise or sit down without screaming. 
I have taken one blue pill and mean to take another. I am better 
to-day, though still in a state for which stooping over paper and 
making the slightest approach to thinking is very bad. So 'you 
must just excuse us the day.' God bless you. I hope your ' fever- 
ish cold ' is driven off. 

Elizabeth was seeking your address for the Kirkcaldy people, who 
mean to send you an invitation I suppose. Perhaps it would be 
your best way of coming back. 

Affectionate regards to them all. 

Your J. C. 

LETTER 54. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., at Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea: Friday morning, Aug. 18, 1843. 

Dearest. — If you expect a spirited letter from me to-day, I grieve 
that you will be disappointed. I am not mended yet: only mend- 
ing, and that present participle (to use Helen's favourite word for 
the weather) is extremely ' dilatory.' The pains in my limbs are 
gone, however, leaving only weakness; and my head aches now with 
'a certain' moderation! still enough to spoil all one's enjoyment of 
life — if there be any such thing for some of us — and, what is more 
to the purpose, enough to interfere with one's 'did intends,' which 
in my case grow always the longer the more manifold and com- 
plicated. 

Darwin came yesterday after my dinner-time (I had dined at 
three), and remarked, in the course of some speculative discourse, 
that I ' looked as if I needed to go to Guntcr's and haye an 
ice!' Do you comprehend what sort of look that can be V Cer- 
tainly he was right, for driving to Gunter's and having an ice re- 
vived me considerably; it was the first time I had felt up to cross- 
ing the threshold, since I took Bessie Mudie to the railway the same 
evening I returned from Ryde. Darwin was very clever yesterday; 
he remarked, apropos of a pamphlet of Maurice's (which by the way 
is come for you), entitled, ' A Letter to Lord Ashley respecting a 
certain proposed mensure for stifling the expression of opinion in 
the University of Oxford,' that pamphlets were for some men just 
what a fit of the gout was for others — they cleared the system, so 
that they could go on again pretty comfortably for a while. He 
told me also a curious conversation amongst three grooms, at which 
Wrightson had assisted the day before in a railway carriage, clearly 
indicating to what an alarming extent the schoolmaster is abroad! 
Groom the first took a pamphlet from his pocket, saying he had 
bought it two days ago and never found a minute to read it. Groom 
the second inquired the subject. First groom: 'Oh, a hit at the 
Puseyists.' Second groom: 'The Puseyists? Ha, they are for 



1 I went duly, sat in poor old Mary Mills's cottage, one morning early, by 
the side of herturf-pile, &c. She hadbeen on pilgrimage to Crawford church- 
yard, found the grave; ' It was a' bonnie yonder, vera bonnie,' said she, in her 
old broken pious tone. I never saw her again. 



bringing us back to the times when people burnt one another!' First 
groom (tapping second groom on the shoulder with the pamphlet): 
' Charity, my brother, charity! ' Third groom: ' Well, I cauuot say 
about the Puseyists; but my opinion is that what we need is more 
Christianity and less religionism!' Now Wrightson swears that 
every word of this is literally as the men spoke it — and certainly 
Wrightson could not invent it. 

I had a long letter from old Sterling, which stupidly I flung into 
the fire in a rage (the fire? Yes, it is only for the la6t two days that 
I have not needed fire in the morning!); and I bethought me after- 
wards that I had better have sent it to you, whom its cool Robert 
Macaire impudence might have amused. Only fancy his inviting 
me to come back, and ' this time he would take care that I should 
have habitable lodgings.' His letter began, 'The last cord which 
held me to existence here is snapped,' — meaning me! and so on. 
Oh, ' the devil fly away with ' the old sentimental ! 

I had letters from both Mr. and Mrs. Buller yesterday explaining 
their having failed to invite me; She appears to have been worse 
than ever, and is likely to be soon here again. Poor old Bullers' 
modest hope that the new medicine ' may not turn Madam blue ' 
is really touching! 

Here is your letter come. And you have not yet got any from 
me since my return! Somebody must have been very negligent, 
for I wrote to you on Sunday, added a postscript on Monday, and 
sent off both letter and newspapers by Helen, in perfectly good 
time. It is most provoking after one has been (as Helen says) ' just 
most particular ' not to vaix you, to find that you have been mixed 
nevertheless. 

You ask about the state of the house. Pearson and Co. are out 
of it. Both the public rooms are in a state of perfect habitablencsa 
again; a little to be done in the needle- work department, but ' noth- 
ing ' (like Dodger's Boy's nose) ' to speak of.' Your bedroom, of 
which the ceiling had to be whitened and the paint washed, &c, 
&c, will be habitable by to-morrow. The front bedrooms, into 
which all the confusion had been piled, are still to clean; — but that 
will soon be done. My own bedroom also needs to have the carpet 
beaten, and the bed curtains taken down and brushed ; all this would 
have been completed by this time but for a most unexpected and 
soul-sickening mess, which I discovered in the kitchen, which has 
caused work for several days. Only fancy, while I was brighten- 
ing up the outside of the platter to find in Helen's bed a new colony 
of bugs! I tell you of it fearlessly this time, as past victory gives me 
a sense of superiority over the creatures. She said to me one morn- 
ing in putting down my breakfast, 'My! I was just standing this 
morning, looking up at the corner of my bed, ye ken, and there 
what should I see but two bogues! I hope there's na mair.' 'You 
hope'?' said I immediately kindling into a fine phrenzy; 'how could 
you live an instant without making sure? A pretty thing it will be 
if you have let your bed get full of bugs again!' The shadow of an 
accusation of remissness was enough of course to make her quite 
positive. ' How was she ever to have thought of bogues, formerly? 
What a thing to think about! But since, she had been just most 
particular! To be sure, these two must have come off these Mudies' 
shawls!' I left her protesting and 'appealing to posterity,' 1 and ran 
off myself to see into the business. She had not so much as taken 
off the curtains; I tore them off distractedly, pulled in pieces all of 
the bed that was pullable, and saw and killed two, and in one place 
which I could not get at without a bed-key, 'beings' (as Mazzini 
would say) were clearly moving! Ah, mercy mercy, my dismay 
was considerable! Still it was not the acme of horror this time, as 
last time, for now I knew they could be annihilated root and 
branch. When I told her there were plent}', she went off to look 
herself, and came back and told me in a peremptory tone that 'she 
had looked and there was not a single bogue there!' It was need- 
less arguing with a wild animal. I had Pearson to take the bed 
down, and he soon gave me the pleasant assurance that 'they were 
pretty strong! ' Neither did he consider them a recent importation. 

Helen went out of the way at the taking down of the bed, not to 
be proved in the wrong to her own conviction; which was ' proba- 
bly just as well,' as she might have saved a remnant in her petti- 
coats, being so utterly careless about the article. Pearson, who 
shared all my own nervous sensibility, was a much better assistant 
for me. I flung some twenty pailfuls of water on the kitchen floor, 
in the first place, to drown any that might attempt to save them- 
selves; then we killed all that were discoverable, and flung the 
pieces of the bed, one after another, into a tub full of water, carried 
them up into the garden, and let them steep there for two days; — 
and then I painted all the joints, had the curtains washed and laid 
by for the present, and hope and trust there is not one escaped alive 
to tell. Ach Goit, what disgusting work to have to do! — but the 
destroying of bugs is a thing that cannot be neglected. In the 
course of the bug investigation I made another precious discovery. 
That the woollen mattress was being eaten from under her with 
moths. That had to be torn up next, all the wool washed and 
boiled, and teazed, — and I have a woman here this day moking it 
up into a mattress again. In your bed I had ocular conviction that 
there were none when it was in pieces; in my own I have inferen- 
tial conviction, for they would have been sure to bite me the very 
first Adam and Eve of them; in the front room nothing is discover- 

• Note, tupra. 



36 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



able either. But I shall take that bed all down for security's sake 
before I have doue with it; — either that, or go up and sleep in it a 
night: — but then imagination might deceive me, and even cause 
spots! ' The troubles that afflict the just,' &c. 

We have warm weather these two days: not oppressive for me, 
but more summer-like than any that has been this season. 

Oh, I always forgot to tell you that in the railway carriage, 
going to Ryde, my next neighbour was Robert Owen (the Socialist); 
he did not know anything of me, so that I had the advantage of 
him. I found something of old Laing in him, particularly the 
voice. I like him on the whole, and in proof thereof gave him 
two carnations. 

Your affectionate 

Goody. 

I have heard nothing farther of Father Mathew. Knowing how 
busy he was, and supposing him.not much used to corresponding 
■with women of genius, I worded my letter so as to make him 
understand I looked for no auswer. As to the stuffed Pope, 1 I 
thought of him (or rather of it); but I felt too much confidence in 
Father Mathevv's good sense to fear his being shocked. 



LETTER 55. 
T. Garlyle, Esq., at Scolsbrig. 

Chelsea: Monday, Aug. 21, 1843. 

Dearest, — I meant to have written you an exceedingly long and 
satisfactory letter last evening; but a quite other work was cut out 
for me, which I cannot say I regret. It is but little good one can 
do to a sane man, whereas for an insane one much is possible: and 
I did even the impossible for such a one last night. Poor Gamier 2 
walked in at five, and stayed till after nine. And if you had seen 
the difference in him at his entrance and exit, you would have said 
that, I had worked a miracle! 

Poor fellow! they may all abuse him as they like; but I think, 
and have thought, and will think, well of him: he has a good heart 
and a good head; only a nervous system all bedevilled, and bis 
external life fallen into a horribly burbled state about him. I gave 
him tea, and took him a walk, and lent him some music, and 
soothed the troubled soul of him, and when he went away he said 
the only civil tiling to me he ever said in life. ' I am obliged to 
you, Mrs. Carlyle; you have made me pass one evening pleasantly; 
and I came very miserable.' He desired his kind regards to you, 
and has a scheme, a propagation, of small schools, to propound to 
you. His uncle in Germany is dead, which will ultimately make 
an amendment in his economics he seems to say. 

I am very quiet at present, so few people are left in town. 
Even poor Gludder (the infamy of giving a Christian such a name!) 
has been gone some time to Tottenham Park; but his patience 
seems near the end of its tether, and he purposes emancipating 
himself shortly, ' before he loses his faculties altogether.' Theu 
Darwin is always going off on short excursions. The Macready 
women, however, came the day before yesterday, the first time I 
had seen them since your departure And I have something to 
ask on the part of Mrs. Macready : ' If you could give William 
any letters of introduction for America, it. would be such a favour! ' 
She cannot bear the idea of his ' going merely as a player, without 
private recommendations.' They looked perfectly heart-broken, 
these women. The letters to America will be needed within ten 
days. To Emerson? Who is there else worth knowing in 
America? I promised to spend a day with them before be went. 

Poor Father Mathew, they say, is getting into deep waters here. 
He does not possess the Cockney strength of silence; his Irish 
blood gets up when he is angered, and he 'commits himself;' I am 
all the more pleased at having given him my most sweet voice, for 
there is plainly a vast deal of party spirit taking the field to put 
him down. One thing they laugh at him for is, to my thinking, 
highly meritorious. Somebody trying to stir up the crowd against 
him, said, 'What good can come to you from that man? — be is 
only a Popish Monk!' Whereupon Father Mathew burst out, 
'And what do you mean by saying no good can come from a Pop- 
ish Monk? Have you not received just the greatest blessings from 
Popish Monks? Have you not received Christianity from a Popish 
Monk? the Reformation from a Popish Monk — Martin Luther?' 
There was something so delightfully Irish, and liberal at the same 
time, in this double view of Luther! 

No letter from you to-day ; but perhaps there will come one in 
the evening. You cannot be accused of remissness in writing, at 
all rates, whatever your other faults may be. Oh, no! you need 
not go to Thornhill. 3 It was a selfish request on my part. I 
would not go myself for a thousand guineas. But send the five 
pound for poor old Mary before you leave the country: her money 
falls entirely done at the end of this mouth. I computed it quite 
accurately, when Mrs. Russell wrote that she had still thirty shil- 
lings. She will not be long to provide for, poor old soul! I have 
sent the books for Lockhart. 

I am busy with a little work just now that makes me so sad. 



1 In Past and Present. 3 See pages 8 and 36. 

1 See supra, however? I hope devoutly it was that time. Ah, met 



You remember the new curtains that came from Templand. When 
she made them, she wrote to me, ' they looked so beautiful that she 
could not find in her heart to hang them up till I should be coming 
again;' and the first sight I was to have of them was here! — and it 
was here, not there, that they were to be hung up. It needed a 
deal of scheming and altering to make them fit our high room; and 
picking out her sewing has been such sorrowful work for me: still 
I could not let anybody meddle with them except myself, and to 
keep them lying there was just as sorrowftil. Ob, dear, dear! 

I hope you are quite free of your cold; the weather is quite cool 
again. God bless you. 

Your affectionate 

Jane Carlyle. 

' Garnier' ' was from Baden; a revolutionary exile, filled with 
mutinous confusion of the usual kind, and with its usual conse- 
quences; a black-eyed, tall, stalwart-looking mass of a man; face 
all cut with scars (of duels in his student time), but expressive still 
of frankness, honesty, ingenuity, and good humour; dirty for most 
part, yet as it were heroically so: few men had more experience 
of poverty and squalor here, or took it more proudly. He had 
some real scholarship, a good deal of loose information ; occasion- 
ally wrote, and had he been of moderate humour could always 
have written, with something of real talent. Cole, the now great 
Cole, of 'the Bromptou boilers,' occasionally met him (in the 
Buller Committee, for instance), and tried to help him, as did I. 
Together we got him finally into some small clerkship under Cole, 
Cole selecting the feasible appointment, I recommending to Lord 
Stanley, who, as ' whipper-in,' had the nomination and always be- 
lieved "what I testified to him. ' You called me a rhinoceros ' (not 
to be driven like a tame ox), said Garnier to me on this occasion, 
pretending, and only pretending, to be angry at me. In a year or 
two he flung off this harness too, and took to the desert again. 
Poor soul! he was at last visibly now and then rather mad. In 
1848 we heard he had rushed into German whirlpool, and, fighting 
in Baden, had perished. John Mill, in 1834, had been his intro- 
ducer here. 

' Gludder ' was one Plattnauer (still living hereabouts and an es- 
teemed tutor in noble families), whom Cavaignac bad (on repeated 
pressure) lately introduced here, ami who has hung about us, lov- 
ingly, and much pitied by her, ever since. I never could much 
take to him, had called him ' Gludder' (awordof myfather's) from 
the sad sound he made in articulating (as if through slush), or get 
real good of him, nor now can when he has grown so sad to me. 
On the whole, one rapidly enough perceived that the foreign exile 
element was not the recommeudable one, and, except for her pic- 
turesque aesthetic, &c. interest in it, would have been very brief with 
it here. As indeed I essentially was: nor she herself very tedious. 
Except with Cavaignac I never had any intimacy, any pleasant or 
useful conversation, among these people — except for Mazzini, and 
him any real respect — and from the first dialogue, Mazziui's opin- 
ions were to me incredible, and (at once tragically and comically) 
impracticable in this world. She, too. even of Mazzini, gradually 
came to that view, though to the last she had always an affection 
for Mazzini, and for the chivalrous and grandly humorous Cavaig- 
nac (and for the memory of him afterwards) still more. — T. C. 

LETTER 56. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., at Scotsbrig, Ecclefechan. 

Chelsea: Sunday night, Aug. 27, 1843. 

Dearest,— Another evening, in thought set apart for you, has 
been eaten up alive by 'rebellious consonants.' I had told Helen 
to go after dinner and take herself a long walk, assuring her no- 
body could possibly arrive, for the best of reasons, that ' there was 
not a human being left in London.' And just when I had fetched 
up my own tea, and was proceeding to ' enjo-oy it' 4 quite in old- 
maid style, there arrived Darley, 3 the sight of whom gave me a 
horrible foretaste of fidgets and nameless woe, which was duly ful- 
filled to me in good time. However, it is to be hoped that he got 
a little good for having a mouthful of human (or rather, to speak 
accurately, inhuman) speech with someone; and in that case one's 
care being ' the welfare of others, ' &c. &c. For myself individually, 
I feel as if I had spent the evening under a harrow. 

I hardly know where a letter now shall find you. But perhaps 
to-morrow will direct me before sending this away. It is very 
stupid of the Ferguses— a fact almost as absurd as speaking to 
Elizabeth of sending us potatoes last year, and never sending them. 
But if you want to see the battle-ground at Dunbar, I am sure you 
need not miss it for lack of somewhere to go. The poor Donald- 
sons—nay, everybody in Haddington— would be so glad to have 
you. The Donaldsons, you know, formerly invited you ' for a 
month or two' this spring. I cannot detect the association, but it 
comes in my head at this moment, and I may as well tell you, that 

1 See page 8, note. , . 

3 The good W. Graham, of Burnswark, a true and kind, and very emphatic, 
friend of mine, had thoughtlessly bragged once (first time she saw hum. ai a 
breakfast with us dyspeptics, how he ' enjo-oyed ' this and that. 

' 'Darley' (George), from Dublin, mathematician, considerable actually and 
do. poet, an amiable, modest, veracious, and intelligent man; much loved 
here, though he stammered dreadfully. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



37 



the Revd. Candlish is in great raptures over ' Past and Present; ' so 
Robertson told me the last time I saw him. Gamier also told me 
that the book had a success of an unusual and very desirable kind; 
it was not so mucli that people spoke about it, as that they 
spoke out of it; in these mysterious conventions of his, your 
phrases, he said, were become a part of the general dialect. The 
booksellers would not have Garnier's translation: that was the rea- 
son of its being given up; not that he was too mad for it. It was I 
who told you about the Lord Dudley Stuart affair; Gamier gave me 
his own version of it that night, and it seemed quite of apiece with 
his usual conduct — good intentions, always unfortunate; a right 
thing wrongly set about. 

Well, the Italian ' Movement' has begun; and also, I suppose, 
ended. Mazzini has been in a state of violent excitement all these 
weeks, really forcibly reminding one of Frank Dickson's goose with 
the addle egg. Nothing hindered him from going off to head the 
movement, except that, unexpectedly enough, the movement ^lid 
not invite him; nay, took pains to 'keep him in a certain ignor- 
ance,' and his favourite conspirator abroad. The movement went 
into Sicily ' to act there alone,' plainly indicating that it meditated 
some arrangement of Italy such as they two would not approve, 
' something— what shall I say? — constitutional.' He came one day, 
and told me quite seriously that a week more'would determine him 
whether to go singly and try to enter the country in secret, or to 
persuade a frigate now here, which he deemed persuadable, to re- 
volt openly and take him there by force. ' And with one frigate,' 
said I, 'you mean to overthrow the Austrian Empire, amidst the 
general peace of Europe?' 'Why not? the beginning only is 
wanted.' I could not help telling him that ' a Harrow or Eton 
schoolboy who uttered such nonsense, and proceeded to give it a 
practical shape, would be whipt and expelled the community as a 
mischievous blockhead.' He was made very angry, of course, but 
it was impossible to see anybody behaving so like ' a mad,' without 
telling him one's mind. He a conspirator chief! I should make 
an infinitely better one myself. What, for instance, can be more 
out of the role of conspirator than his telling me all his secret opera- 
tions, even to the names of places where conspiracy is breaking out, 
and the names of people who are organising it? Me, who do not 
even ever ask him a question on such matters; who on the contrary 
evade them as much as possible! A man has a right to put bis own 
life and safety at the mercy of whom he will, but no amount of con- 
fidence in a friend can justify him for making such dangerous dis- 
closures concerning others. What would there have been very 
unnatural, for example, in my sending a few words to the Austrian 
Government, warning them of the projected outbreaks, merely for 
the purpose of Having them prevented, so as to save Mazzini's head 
and the heads of the greater number, at the sacrifice of a few? If 
I had not believed that it would be, like the ' Savoy's Expedition,' 
stopped by some providential toll-bar, I believe I should have felt 
it my duty as Mazzini's friend to do this thing. Bologna was the 
place where they were first to raise their foolscap-standard. The 
' Examiner ' mentions carelessly some young men having collected 
in the streets, and ' raised seditious cries, and even fired some shots 
at the police;' cannon were planted, &c, ' Austriaus read}' to 
march ' — not a doubt of it; and seditious cries will make a poor bat- 
tle against cannon. Mazzini is confident, however, that the thing 
will not stop here; and. if it goes on, is resolute also in getting into 
the thick of it. ' What do you say of my head? what are results? 
are there not things more important than one's head? ' ' Certainly, 
but I should say that the man who has not sense enough to keep 
his head on his shoulders till something is to be gained by parting 
with it, has not sense enough to manage, or dream of managing, any 
important matter whatever.' Our dialogues become ' warm,' but 
you see how much I have written about this, which you will think 
six words too many for. 

Good-night; I must go and sleep. 

Monday. 

Dearest,— Thanks for your letter, and, oh, a thousand thanks for 
all this you have done for me! I am glad that you have seen these 
poor people, 1 that they have had the gladness of seeing you. Poor 
old Mary! it will be something to talk and think over for a year to 
come. Your letter has made me cry, to be sure, but has made me 
very contented nevertheless. I am very grateful to you. Did Mrs. 
Russell say anything about not having answered my letter? I sent 
a little shawl, on my last birthday, to Margaret, to Mrs. R.'s care, 
and a pound of tea (that is money for*it) to old Mary, in a letter to 
Mrs. Russell, and, as I have never heard a word from Thornhill 
since, I have sometimes feared the things had been taken by the 
way; it is very stupid in people not to give one the satisfaction of 
WTiting on these little occasions. 

I am afraid you will think London dreadfully solitary when you 
return from the country. Actually there never was' so quiet a 
bouse except, Craigenputtock as this has been for the last fortnight. 
Darwin finally is off this morning to Shrewsbury for three weeks. 
He gave me a drive to Parson's Green yesterday ; ' wondered if 
Carlyle would give admiration enough for all my needlework, &c, 
&c, feared not; but he would have a vague sense of comfort from 

1 At Thornhill, to which Carlyle had gone, at her request. 



it,' and uttered many other sarcastic things, by way of going off in 
good Darwin style. Just when I seemed to be got pretty well 
through my sewing, I have rushed wildly into a new mess of it. I 
have realised an ideal, have actually acquired a small sofa, which 
needs to be covered, of course. I think I see your questioning look 
at this piece of news: 'A sofa? Just now, above all, when there 
had been so much else done and to pay for! This little woman is 
falling away from her hitherto thrifty character, and become down- 
right extravagant.' Never fear! this little woman knows what she 
is about; the sofa costs you simply nothing at all! Neither have I 
sillily paid four or five pounds away for it out of my own private 
purse. It is a sofa which I have known about for the last year 
and half. The man who had it asked U. 10s. for it; was willing 
to sell it without mattress or cushions for 2/. 10s. I had a spare 
mattress which I could make to fit it, and also pillows lying by of 
no use. But still, 21. 10s. was more than I cared to lay out of my 
own money on the article, so 1 did a stroke of trade with him. 
The old green curtains of downstairs were become filthy; and, 
what was better, superfluous. No use could be made of them, 
unless first dyed at the rate of Id. per yard ; it was good to be rid 
of them, that they might not fill the house with moths, as those 
sort of woollen things lying by always do: so I sold them to the 
broker for thirty shillings; I do honestly think more than their 
value; but I higgled a full hour with him, and the sofa had lain on 
his hands. So you perceive there remained only one pound to 
pay; and that I paid with Kitty Kirkpatrick's sovereign, which I 
had laid aside not to be appropriated to my own absolutely indi- 
vidual use. So there is a sofa created in a manner by the mere 
wish to have it. 

Oh, what nonsense clatter I do write to thee! Bless you, dear- 
est, anyhow. Affectionately your own, 

Jane Caklyle. 

I did go to Dunbar battle-field, remember vividly my survey 
there, my wild windy walk from Haddington thither jiud back; 
bright Sunday, but gradually the windiest I was ever out in; head 
wind (west), on my return, would actually hold my hat against my 
breast for minutes together. It was days before I got the sand 
out of my hair again. Saw East Lothian, all become a treeless 
'Corn Manchester' — a little more money in its pocket — and of 
piety, to God or man, or mother-earth, how much left? At Linton 
in the forenoon, I noticed lying on the green, many of them with 
Bibles, some 150 decent Highlanders; last remnant of the old 
'Highland reapers' here; and round them, in every quarter, all 
such a herd of miserable, weak, restless 'wild Irish,' their con- 
querors and successors here, as filled me with a kind of rage and 
sorrow at once; all in ragged grey frieze, 8,000 or 4.000 of them, 
aimless, restless, hungry, senseless, more like apes than men; 
swarming about, leaping into bean-fields, turnip-fields, and out 
again, asking you ' the loime, sir.' — I almost wondered the Sabba- 
tarian country did not rise on them, fling the whole lot into the 
Frith. Sabbatarian country never dreamt of such a thing, and I 
could not do it myself; I merely told them ' the toime, sir.' 

The excellent old Misses Donaldson, how kind, how good, and 
sad; I never saw one of them again. Vacant, sad, was Hadding- 
ton to me; sternly sad the grave which has now become hers as 
well! I have seen it twice since. 



LETTER 57. 

Brother ' John ' is on the way to Italy — never one of the quietest 
of men in this house!— 'Time and Space,' &c., is a story of Mrs. 
Austin's, about two metaphysical spouses (I quite forget whom) on 
their wedding-day: ' Come, my dear one, and let us have,' &c. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., at Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea: Thursday. Aug. 31. 1843. 
Dearest, —The enclosed note from John arrived last night, along 
with yours announcing his departure for Liverpool. I wish he had 
been coming after you, or even with you. I had set my heart on 
your hanselling the clean house yourself, and that there would 
have been a few days in peace to inspect its curiosities and niceties 
before be came plunging in to send all the books afloat, and litter 
the floors with first and second and third and fourth scrawls of ver- 
felilt letters. But, like Mademoiselle L'Espinasse, son talent est 
d'Stre tun jours hors depropos! If he cared about seeing oneself, it 
would be quite different; but if the house would go on like those 
charming palaces one reads of in the fairy tales, where clothes are 
found hanging ready at the fire to be put on by the wearied travel- 
ler, and a table comes up through the floor a'll spread to appease 
his hunger, oneself might be a thousand miles off, or, like the 
enchanted Princess of "these establishments, might be running 
about in the shape of a 'little mouse,' without his contentment 
being disturbed, or indeed anything but increased, by the blank. 
Howsomdever! — Only, when you come, I shall insist on going into 
some room with you, and locking the door, till we have had a quiet 
comfortable talk about 'Time and Space,' untormented by his 
blether. Meanwhile, ' the duty nearest hand ' is to get on the stair- 
carpet that he may run up and down more softly. 



38 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



LETTER 58. 



From the Dunbar expedition I seem to have gone again to Scots- 
brig for a few final days; thence homewards, round by Edinburgh, 
by Kirkcaldy, and at length by Linlathen, for the sake of a Dun- 
dee steamer, in which I still remember to have come hence. Vivid 
enough still that day of my embarkation at Dundee; between Dun- 
bar and that, almost nothing of distinct. ' The good Stirlings ' are 
Susan Hunter, of St. Andrews, and her husband, a worthy engineer, 
now resident at Dundee — pleasant house on the seashore, where I 
must have called, but found them gone out. The good Susan (I 
remember bearing afterwards) had, from her windows, with a pros- 
pect-glass, singled me out on the chaotic deck of the steamer about 
to leave; and kept me steadily in view for about an hour, in spite 
of the crowds and confusions, till we actually steamed away. 
Which seemed curious! An hour or two before, in driving thither 
from Linlathen, I distinctly recognised, on the pathway, John 
Jeffrey (' Frank ' or Lord Jeffrey's brother), quiet, amiable man, 
with his face (which was towards me, but intent on the constitu- 
tional walk only) grown strangely red since I had seen him; the 
guest of these Stirlings I could well guess, and indeed not far from 
their house. He died soon after; my last sight of him this. 

T. Cartyle, Esq., at T. Erskine's, Esq., Linlatlien, Dundee. 

Chelsea: Sept. 18 (?), 1843. 
Dearest, — I could almost have cried, last night, when the letter I 
had sent off on Thursday came back to me from Scotsbrig; though 
I knew, after receiving yours from Dumfries, that it would not 
reach you there, I made sure of their sending it on to Edinburgh, 
and that so there would be something for you at the post-office. 
But for this fond illusion I should not have let a slight headache, 
combined with a great washing of blankets, hinder me from doing 
your bidding in that small matter. When you are so unfailing in 
writing to me— and such kind, good letters— it were a shame indeed 
if I wilfully disappointed you. You will not have been anxious 
anyhow I hope, for that would be a worse effect of my silence than 
to have made you angry with me. 

All is going on here as well as could be expected; not so com- 
fortably indeed as when I was alone, but I shall ' be good,' you may 
depend upon it, 'till you come.' John arrived in due course, in a 
sort of sublimely self-complacent state, enlarging much on his gen- 
eral usefulness wherever he had been! Since then I have had his 
company at all meals, and he reads in the same room with me, in 
the evenings, a great many books simultaneously, which he rum- 
mages out one after another from all the different places where I 
had arranged them in the highest order. The rest of his time 
is spent as you can figure: going out and in, up and down, 
backwards and forwards; smoking, and playing with the cat in 
the garden; writing notes in his own room and your room alter- 
nately; and pottering about Brompton, looking at Robertson's 
lodgings and Gambardella's lodgings over and over again, with 
how much of a practical view no mortal can tell. For just 
when I thought he was deciding for Gambardella's, he came in 
and told me that he thought he would have an offer from 
Lady Clare's brother to go to Italy, and expressed astonishment 
on my saying that I had understood he did not want to go back 
to Italy. ' Why not? He could not afford to set up as doc- 
tor here, and keep up a large house that would be suitable 
for the purpose.' That is always a subject of discussion which 
brings the image of my own noble father before me; making 
a contrast, under which I cannot argue without losing all tem- 
per. So I quitted it as fast as possible, and he has not told me 
anything more of his views. I should really be sorry for him, 
weltering 'like a fly among treacle ' as he is, if it were not for his 

self-conceit, which seems to be always saying to one, ' you, be 

wae for yourself! ' ' 

I have nothing to tell you of the news sort, and of the inner- 
woman sort; I feel as if I had now only to await your coming in 
silence. The note from Cole came this morning. Nickison's was 
returned from Scotsbrig along with my letter last night. Do not 
forget that we have a cousin in Fife.- The thing being a novelty 
might easily slip your memory, and if you go back to Edinburgh 
do try to see poor Betty, 3 who would be made happy for a year by 
the sight of any of us. ' Her address is 15 East Adam Street; my 
aunts', in case "you should have any leisure for them, is 30 Clarence 
Street. And Sam Aitken? 4 

I do not see how you are to get home by Saturday's steamer, after 
all. If you go to Dundee, you might spend a day very pleasantly 
with those good Sterlings, besides there being ' St. Thomas ' 5 to 
see. Do not hurry yourself an hour on my account; all will go well 
till you come. Remember me kindly to everybody that cares for 
me; if you have time, look in on Helen's sister, 6 and say I have been 
very well satisfied with her this long while. 

1 A conceited, quizzing man, to poor Rae, an industrious simpleton, nursing 
his baby at that moment, on the street of Ecclefechan: ' Rae. I's wae for 
you.' 'Damn ye, be wae for yerseP! ' answered Rae sharply, with laughter 
from the bystanders. a Rev. Walter Welsh, Auchtertool. 

3 ' Betty ' is the old servant at Haddington, now married, in Edinburgh, still 
living near; one of the most pious, true, and affectionate of women. 

4 Obliging bookseller, successor of Bradfute. 

6 T. Erskine. of Linlathen, to whom I did go. Home thence by steamer. 
• At Kirkcaldy. 



Poor Macready called to take leave of me and to leave with me 
his 'grateful regards ' for you. His little wife, who accompanied 
him, looked the very picture of woe. I could not help thinking, if 
he met the fate of Power. 1 And when I bade him farewell 1 turned 
quite sick myself in sympathy with the little woman. Gamier wa§ 
back last night uncommonly sane, with a very bad coat, but clean; 
had been working very hard, and drinking, I should say, not at all. 

God bless you, dear; thank you a thousand times for all that 
you told me in your last two letters; they were very sad but very 
precious to me. 

Your affectionate 

J awe C. 

LETTER 59. 

To John Forster, Esq. , 58 Lincoln's Inn Fields. 

Chelsea: Friday morning, Sept. 184S. 

Oh, my good Brother, — For two things accept my ' unmitigated ' 
thanks! First for having done the King of Prussia so famously 
that the innocent heart of old Kraziuski leapt for joy ;— secondly for 
a more 'questionable' kindness, viz., having done for StraffordI 
Hang the 'Legitimate Drammar I' or in my husband's more poeti- 
cal dialect, 'the devil fly away with itl ' I have told him (Sterling) 
all along that it was poor stuff, and had belter not see the light, or 
at least have the light see it. But, no! it was a great and glorious 
piece of work in its author's opinion; and I, and all who fail to 
recognise it for such, were blinded by envy or some other of the 
evil passions. I was so glad you did not praise it, and so undo all 
the salutary influence which my abuse of it might ultimately exert 
on him. 

My husband is likely to turn up here in about a week. HU 
shadow (his brother) is cast before him, — arrived last night 

LETTER 60. 

I had sent out 'Past and Present' I think in the early part of 
this summer, and then gone on a lengthened tour of expected 
' recreation ' into Wales (to my poor friend Redwood at Llaudough, 
Cowbridge, there), thence to Carmarthen (three days) to the 
Bishop of St. David's here, days mostly wet; thence by Malvern 
to Liverpool ; met my brother, and with him to North Wales (top 
of Snowdou cloaked in thick mist on our arrival there) — at Beth- 
gellert and Tremadoc deluges of rain, &c. &c. — back to Liverpool, 
and thence to Auuandale for three weeks; after all which home to 
Chelsea, as noticed in this letter; all the subsequent details of 
which rise gradually into clearness, generally of a painful nature 
to me. The fittings and retittings for me full of loving ingenuity, 
the musical young lady other side the wall; the general dreary and 
chaotic state of inward man while struggling to get 'Cromwell' 
started, all this and the bright ever-cheering presence in it, literally 
the only cheering element there was, comes back into my heart with 
a mournful gratitude at this moment. 

'The Mudies' were two grown daughters of a Mr. Mudie whom 
I recollect hearing of about 1818 as a restless, somewhat reckless, 
and supreme schoolmaster at Dundee. He had thrown tip his 
function there in about 1820, and marched off to London as a liter- 
ary adventurer. Here for above twenty years he did manage to 
subsist and float about in the ' mother of dead dogs,' had even con- 
siderable success of a kind; wrote a great many miscellaneous vol- 
umes mostly about natural history, I think, which were said to dis- 
play diligence and merit, and to have brought him considerable 
sums. But by this time the poor fellow had broken down, had died 
and left a family, mostly daughters, with a foolish widow, and next 
to no provision whatever for them. The case was abundantly pite- 
ous, but it was not by encouragement from me, to whom it seemed 
from the first hopeless, that my dear one entered into it with such 
zeal and determination. Her plans were, I believe, the wisest that 
could be formed, and the trouble she took w::s very great. I re- 
member these Mudies — flary, staring, and conceited, stolid-looking 
girls, thinking themselves handsome, being brought to live with us 
here, to get out of the maternal element, while ' places' were being 
prepared for them ; but no amount of trouble was, or could be, of 
the least avail. The wretched stalking blockheads stalked fate- 
fully, in spite of all that could be done or said, steadily downwards 
toward perdition, and sank altogether out of view. There was no 
want of pity in this house. I never knew a heart more open to the 
sufferings of others, and to the last she persisted in attempts at little 
operations for behoof of such; but had to admit that except in one 
or two small instances she had done no good to the unfortunate 
objects she attempted to aid. — T. C, March 1873. 

Mrs. Aitken, Dumfries. 

October 1848. 
My dear Jane, — Carlyle returned from his travels very bilious, 
and continues very bilious up to this hour. The amount of bilo 
that he does bring home to me, in these cases, is something 'aw- 
fully grand! "' Even through that deteriorating medium he could 

1 Comic Irish actor, sailed to America, had 'splendid success' there. On 
the return voyage steamer itself went down; mouse and man never heard of 
more. 

3 Newspaper phrase. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



not but be struck with a ' certain admiration ' at the immensity of 
needlework I hud accomplished in his absence, iu the shape of 
chair covers, sofa-covers, window cnrlains, &c. , &c, and all the 
other manifest improvements into which I had put my whole genius 
and industry, and j little money as was hardly to be conceived! 1 
For three days his satisfaction over the rehabilitated house lasted ; 
on the fourth, the young lady next door took a fit of practising on 
her accursed pianoforte, which he had quite forgotten seemingly, 
and he started up disenchanted in his new library, and informed 
heaven and earth in a peremptory manner that ' there he could 
neither think nor live,' that the carpenter must be brought back 
and 'steps taken to make him a quiet place somewhere — perhaps 
best of all on the roof of the house.' Then followed interminable 
consultations with the said carpenter, yielding, for some days, only 
plans (wild ones) and estimates. The roof on the house could be 
made all that a living author of irritable nerves could desire: silent 
as a tomb, lighted from above; but. it would cost us 1207. ! Impos- 
sible, seeing that we may be turned out of the house any year! So 
one had to reduce one's schemes to the altering of rooms that al- 
ready were. By taking down a partition and instituting a fire-place 
where no fire-place could have been fancied capable of existing, it 
is expected that some bearable approximation to that ideal room in 
the clouds will be realised. But my astonishment and despair on 
finding myself after three months of what they call here 'regular 
mess,' just when I had got every trace of the work-people cleared 
away, and had said to m3'self, 'Soul, take thine ease, or at all 
events thy swing, for thou hast carpets nailed down and furniture 
rubbed for many days!' just when I was beginning to lead the 
dreaming, reading, dawdling existence which best suits me, and 
alone suits me in cold weather, to find myself in the thick of a new 
'mess:' the carpets, which I had nailed down so well with my 
own hands, tumbled up again, dirt, lime, whitewash, oil, paint, 
hard at work as before, and a prospect of new cleanings, new sew- 
ings, new arrangements stretching away into eternity for anything 
I see! ' Well,' as my Helen says (the strangest mixture of philoso- 
pher and perfect idiot that I have met with in my life), ' when one's 
doing this, one's doing nothing else anyhow! ' And as one ought 
to be always doing something, this suggestion of hers has some con- 
solation in it. 

John has got a very pleasant lodging, in the solitude of which it 
is to be hoped he may discover ' what he wanted and what he 
wants.' 5 There is an old man who goes about singing here, and 
accompanying himself on the worst of fiddles, who has a song 
about Adam that John should lend all his ears to: it tells about all 
his comforts in Paradise, and then adds that he nevertheless was at 
a loss; to be sure. 

' He had all that was pleasant in life. 
But the all-wise, great Creator 
Saw that be wanted a wife I ' 3 

But you could form no notion of the impressiveness of this song 
unless you could hear the peculiar jerk in the fiddle in the middle 
of the last line, and the old man's distribution of emphasis on the 
different words of it. 

Here is come a son of Mrs. Strachey's, to be talked to; werch 
enough, but there is no help for it. I do not think you shall have 
such reason to reproach me again, now that the ice is broken. 

Kind regards to your husband. God keep you all. 

Affectionately yours, 

Jane Carlyle. 

Mrs. Carlyle fills out the picture of the 'domestic earthquake' in 
a letter to Mrs. Stirling. 

'Up went all the carpets which my own hands had nailed down, 
in rushed the troop of incarnate demons, bricklayers, joiners, white- 
washers, &c, whose noise and dirt and dawdling had so lately 
driven me to despair. Down went a partition in one room, up 
went a new chimney in another. Helen, instead of exerting herself 
to stave the torrent of confusion, seemed to be struck (no wonder) 
with temporary idiotcy; and my husband himself, at sight of the 
uproar he had raised, was all but wringing his hands and tearing 
his hair, like the German wizard servant who has learnt magic 
enough to make the broomstick carry water for him, but had not 
the counter spell to stop it. Myself could have sat down and cried, 
so little strength or spirit I had left to front the pressure of my cir- 
cumstances. But crying makes no way; so I went about sweeping 
and dusting as an example to Helen; and held my peace as an ex- 

• Literally and arithmetically true, thou noble darling I richer to me than 
all the duchesses of the creation ! 
3 Character in one of Zechariah Werner's plays. 

3 In a quiet street near Covent Garden, one sunny day, with a considerable 
straggle of audience, I found this artist industriously fiddling and singing what 
seemed to be a succinct doggerel ' History of Man ' (in Paradise as yet). Ar- 
tist was not very old, but wanted the front teeth: was rather dirty, had a 
beard of three weeks. &c. and for the rest a look of great assiduity and ear- 
nestness in his vocation ; insisting on longs and shorts, with clear emphasis, 
by fiddle and voice. These were the words I heard (accentuated as here): — 
1 'E (Adam evidently) 'ad 'ounds and 'osses for 'unting, 

'E 'ad all things* was pleasant in life; 
The all-wise great Creator {with a deep scrape of the fiddle] 
Saw that 'e wanted a wife. 1 



Aydemi! how strange at this moment (April 29, 



)! 



ample to my husband, who verily, as Mnzzini says of him, 'loves 
silence somewhat platonically.' It was got through iu the end, 
this new hubbub; but, when my husband proceeded to occupy his 
new study, he found that devil a bit he could write iu it any more 
than beside the piano; ' it was all so strange to him ! ' The fact is, 
the thing he has got to write — his long projected life of Cromwell 
— is no joke, and no sort of room can make it easy, and he has been 
ever since shifting about iu the saddest way from one room lo an- 
other, like a sort of domestic wandering Jew! He has now a fair 
chance, however, of getting a settlement effected in the original 
library; the young lady next door having promised to abstain re- 
ligiously from playing till two o'clock, when the worst of his day's 
work is over. Generous young lady! But it must be confessed, 
the seductive letter he wrote to her the other day was enough to 
have gained the heart of a stone. 

Alas, one can make fun of all this on paper; but in practice it is 
anything hut fun, I can assure you. There is no help for it, how- 
ever; a man cannot hold his genius as a sinecure. 

LETTER 61. 

To John Welsh, Esq., Liverpool. 

Chelsea: Tuesday night, Nov. 28, 1843. 
Uncle dear! — How are you? I kiss you from ear to car, and I 
love you very considerably; 'hoping to find you the same.' 

The spirit moves me to write to you just at this unlikeliest 
moment (lor my spirit is a contradictory spirit), when the influenza 
has left me with scarce faculty enough "to spell words of more than 
one syllable. I caught the horrid thing a week ago, by destiny, 
through no indiscretion of my own, which is a consolation of a cer- 
tain sort. For it does form a most ' aggravating ' ingredient in. 
one's suffering to be held responsible for it; to be told 'this comes 
of your going to such a place, or doing such a thing: if you had 
taken my advice ' &c. &c. ! But this time I bad been going no- 
where, doing nothing in the least degree questionable; the utmost 
lark I had engaged in for months being to descend at Grange's 
(Babbie knows the place) in the course of my last drive with old 
Sterling, and there refresh exhausted nature with a hot jelly, and 
one modest sponge rake. It would have been no harm, I think, 
had the influenza taken, instead of temperate me, a personage who 
sat on the next chair to us at the said Grange's, and before whose 
bottomless appetite all the surrounding platefuls of cakes dis- 
appeared like reek! His companion, who was treating him, finally 
snatched up a large pound-cake, cut it into junks, and handed him 
one after another on the point of a knife, till that also had gone ad 
plura. The dog, for it was with a dog that I had the honour of 
lunching that day, appeared to consume poundcake as my Pen- 
fillan grandfather professed to eat cheese, ' purely lor diversion! ' 

By the way. it must have been a curious sight for the starved 
beggars, who hang about the doors of such places, to see a dog 
make away with as much cake in five minutes as would have kept 
them in bread for a week, or weeks! Bad enough for them to see 
human beings, neither bonnier perhaps, nor wiser, nor, except for 
the clothes on their backs, in any way better than themselves, 
eating hot jelly, and such like delicacies, while they must go with- 
out the necessaries of life. But a dog! really that was stretching 
the injustice to something very like impiety, it strikes me. 

I should like to know the name of ' the gentleman as belonged 
to that dog.' He seemed, by his equipment and bearing, a person 
holding some rank in the world, besides the generical rank of fool; 
and should one find him some other day maintaining in Parliament 
that ' all goes well,' it would throw some light on the worth of his 
opinion to know that his dog nay have as much pound-cake at 
Grange's as it likes to eat! 

That however was the last social fact which I witnessed, having 
been since laid up at home, and part of the time in bed. I do not 
know why the solitude of a bedroom should be so much more soli- 
tary than the solitude of other places, but so I find it. When my 
husband is at work, I hardly ever see his face from breakfast till 
dinner; and when it rains, as often even when it does not rain, no 
living soul comes near me, to speak one cheerful word; yet, so 
long as I am in, what the French call, my ' room of reception,' it 
never occurs to me to feel lonely. But, send me to my bedroom 
for a day, to that great red bed in which I have transacted so many 
headaches, so many influenzas! and I feel as if I were already half 
buried! Oh, so lonely! as in some intermediate stage betwixt the 
living world and the dead! 

I sometimes think that, were I to remain there long, I should 
arrive in the end at prophesying, like my great great ancestors! ■Soli- 
tude has such a power of blending past, present, and future, far and 
near, all into one confused jumblement, in which I wander about 
like a disembodied spirit, that has put off the beggarly conditions 
of time and space: and that I take to be a first development of the 
spirit of prophecy in one. 

The letters of Babbie used to be no small comfort to me when I 
was ailing: but Babbie, since she went to Scotland, has had other 
things to do, it would seem, than writing to me. Babbie's beauti- 
ful constancy in writing has. like many other beautiful things of 
this earth, succumbed to the force of circumstances. Ah, yes! 
what young lady can withstand the force of circumstances? 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



Circumstances are the young lady's destiny; it is only when she 
lias lived long enough to have tried conclusions with the real destiny 
that she learns to know the difference, and learns to submit herself 
peaceably to the one, and to say to the other, that humbug force of 
circumstances, 'But I will! je le veux.moi.'' Oh, it is the grand 
happiness of existence when one can break through one's circum- 
stances by a strong will, as Samson burst the cords of the Philis- 
tinesl Isn't it, uncle? You should know, if any man does! you 
who are — permit me, I mean it entirely iu a complimentary sense — 
so very, very wilful. But as for my sweet Babbie, her volition is 
not yet adequate to breaking the pack-threads of the Lilliputians, 
never to speak of cords of the Philistines. 

And meanwhile, what can one do for her, but just what poor 
Edward Irving counselled certain elders to do, who once waited 
upon him at Annan to complain of the backslidings of their minis- 
ter, and ask his (Edward's) advice under the same. Edward, 
having listened to their catalogue of enormities, knit his brows, 
meditated some moments, and then answered succinctly, ' My 
good friends, you had best pray for him to the Lord! ' 

My American was immensely pleased with your reception of him. 
That is the only American whom I have found it possible to be 
civil to this great long while. 

Oh, such a precious specimen of the regular Yankee I have seen 
since! Coming in from a drive one forenoon, I was informed by 
Helen, with a certain agitation, that there was a strange gentle- 
man in the library; ' he said he had come a long way, aud would 
wait for the master coming home to dinner; and I have been,' said 
she, ' in a perfect fidget all this while, for I remembered after he 
was in that you had left your watch on the table ' 

I proceeded to the library to inspect this unauthorised settler 
with my own eyes; a tall, lean, red-herring-looking man rose from 
Carlyle's writing-table, which he was sitting writing at, with Car- 
lyle's manuscripts and private letters all lying about; and running 
his eyes over me, from head to foot, said, ' Oh, you are Mrs. Car- 
lyle, are you? ' An inclination of the head, intended to be hauteur 
itself, was all the answer he got. ' Do you keep your health 
pretty well, Mrs. Carlyle'?' said the wretch, nothing daunted, that 
being always your regular Yankee's second word. Another incli- 
nation of the head, even slighter than the first. ' I have come a 
great way out of my road,' said he, ' to congratulate Mr. Carlyle on 
his increasing reputation, and, as I did not wish to have my walk 
for nothing, I am waiting till he comes in ; but in case he should 
not come in time for me, I am just writing him a letter, here, at 
his own table, as you see, Mrs. Carlyle!' Having reseated him- 
self without invitation of mine. I turned on my heel aud quitted 
the room, determined not to sit down in it while the Yankee 
stayed. 

But about half an hour after came Darwin and Mr. Wedgwood; 
aud, as there was no fire in the room below, they had to be shown 
up to the library, where, on my return, I found the Yankee 
still seated in Carlyle's chair, very actively doing, as it were, the 
honours of the house to them. And there he sat upwards of an- 
other hour, not one of us addressing a word to him, but he not the 
less thrusting iu his word into all that was said. 

Finding that I would absolutely make no answer to his remarks, 
he poured in upon me a broadside of positive questions. 

'Does Mr. Carlyle enjoy good health, Mrs. Carlyle?' 'No!' 
' Oh, he doesn't! What does he complain of, Mrs. Carlyle? ' ' Of 
everything!' 'Perhaps he studies too hard; — does he study too 
hard, Mrs. Carlyle? ' ' Who knows? ' ' How many hours a day 
does he study, Mrs. Carlyle? ' ' My husband does not work by the 
clock.' And so on — his impertinent questions receiving the most 
churlish answers, but which seemed to patter off the rhinoceros- 
hide of him as though they had been sugar-plums. At length he 
declared that Mr. Carlyle was really very longof coming; to which 
I replied, that it would be still longer before he came. 

Whereupon, having informed himself as to all the possible and 
probable omnibuses, he took himself away, leaving my two geutle- 
meu ready to expire of laughter, and me to fall upon Helen at the 
first convenient moment for not defending better ' the wooden 
guardian of our privacy.' But really these Yankees form a con- 
siderable item in the ennuis of our mortal life. I counted lately 
fourteen of them in one fortnight, of whom Dr. Russel was the 
only one that you did not feel tempted to take the poker to. 

If Mr. Carlyle's ' increasing reputation ' bore no other fruits but 
congratulatory Yankees and the like, I should vote for its proceed- 
ing to diminish with all possible despatch. 

Give my love to the children. A hearty kiss to Maggie for her 
long letter; for which I was also charged by Mrs. Wedgwood to 
make her grateful acknowledgments. The governess was plainly 
not at all advanced enough for Mrs. Wedgwood's children; but 
Maggie's letter was a gratification to us on its own basis. 

And now, dear uncle, if I have not wearied you, I have wearied 
myself, which is not at present hard to do, for although the worst 
of my cold is over, I suppose, I am as weak as a sparrow, 

I wish I knew how you exactly are, and what that little demo- 
ralised Babbie is doing; for, although she has left my last letter un- 
answered for nearly three weeks, I cannot help still retaining a 
certain tenderness for her. God bless you all. 

Ever your affectionate 

Jane W. Carlyle. 



Carlyle is over head and ears in Cromwell — is lost to humanity 
for the time being. 

LETTER 62. 

To Mrs. Ailken, Dumfries.'', s c 
5 Cheyne Kow: Good Friday, March-April, ISM [?]. 

My dear Jane, — It is late to thank you for the pretty little mata, 
later than even an unusual amount of headaches could have ex- 
cused, had not Mr. C. in the meanwhile conveyed my ' favourable 
sentiments.' He has probably told you also the fact of my absence 
for two weeks. I returned from Addiscombe ' last Saturday, very 
little set up either in mind or body by my fortnight of dignified 
idleness. The coldness of the weather prevented my going much 
into the open air. and within doors the atmosphere at Addiscombe 
is much more chilly than at Cheyne Row; but it is morally good 
for one, now and then, to fling oneself into circumstances in which 
one must exert oneself, and consume one's own smoke, even under 
the pressure of physical ailment. The more I see wealthy estab- 
lishments, however, the less I wish to preside over one of my own. 
The superior splendour is overbalanced by the inferior comfort, 
and the only indisputable advantage of a large fortune — the power 
of helping other people with it — all these rich people, however good 
and generous their hearts may have been iu the beginning, seem 
somehow enchanted into never availing themselves of. 

I fouud Carlyle in a bad way, complaining of sore throat and 
universal misery, aud in this state nothing I could say hindered 
him from walking out in the rain, aud his throat became so much 
worse during the night that I was afraid he was going to be as ill 
as when poor Becker attended him at Cornel}' Bank. He had 
asked a gentlemau to dinner on Sunday, aud two more to tea — 
Dodds, aud John Hunter of Edinburgh, and two more came 'on 
the voluntary principle,' and all these men I had to receive and 
entertain, on my own basis; and to show me, I suppose, that they 
were not too much mortified in finding only me, the unfortunate 
creatures all stayed till eleven at night. Then I put a mustard 
blister on the man's throat, aud put him to bed with apprehensions 
enough; but, to my astonishment, he went almost immediately to 
sleep, and slept quite peaceably all night, and next morning the 
throat was miraculously mended. We kept him in bed to break- 
fast, almost by main force however, and John told him to live on 
slops to complete his cure; but he told John in very decided An- 
nandale that ' he had a great notion he would follow the direction 
of Nature in the matter of eating and getting up, and if Nature 
told him to dine on a chop it would be a clever fellow that should 
persuade him not to do it.' — [Remainder lost."] 

LETTER 63. 

This summer she ventured on a visit to Liverpool, and friends in 
that iieighbouro od. I was immovably imprisoned in Cromwell in- 
tricacies. The ' Wedgwood ' must have been not Hensleigh (who 
was familiar here), but an elder brother of his: amiable, polite 
people all. 

' Maura is etat.' — Recu: un Pape en assez mavrais etat,' certified 
the French officer at some post in the Alps, as Pio VII. (?) was 
passing through his hands on way to Fontainebleau. (Anecdote of 
Cavaignac's to us.) 

' Came to pass,' &c. — A poor Italian painter, protege of Mazzini's, 
living in some back street of Chelsea, had by ill luck set his chim- 
ney on fire; but, by superhuman efforts, to escape the penalty, got 
it quenched in time. Still, in time, as he hoped; 'when,' said 
Mazzini, reporting in Mazzini English, ' there came to pass a sweep ' 
who smelt the soot of him; and extorted from him still a guinea of 
hush money — the greedy knave. 

' 111 nil gude ' had become proverbial here, ou the following ac- 
count. Emeritus, very ancient Annandale cattle dealer, to topsman 
of an accideutal cattle-drove on the highway (as reported by him- 
self to William Graham aud me); ' "Beautiful cattle," c'ai (quoth 
I); " what might cattle o' that kind lie ye a head?" "I can d'ye 
naither ill na' (nor) guid!" ' (by blabbing in your market.) 

T. Carlyle, Esq., CJtelsea. 

Liverpool : Monday, June 25, 1844. 
Dearest, — It was impossible for me even to aim at sending you 
any word last night, for iu fact I was here in asiee nm a mis etat; in 
other words, quite beside myself. I had set off ou the journey 
with my imagination in far too lively a state; and accordingly, 
before I had gone far, ' there came to pass ' in me ' something — 
what shall I say? — strange, upon my honour,' and by the time we 
had got to Rugby I was in all the agonies of sea-sickness, without 
the sea! It was a great aggravation being cooped up in that small 
carriage, so ill, with a man I knew so slightly as Mr. Wedgwood. 
He behaved very well; 'abstained from no attentions,' and at the 
same time made no fuss, but still I should have preferred being 
beside an entire stranger. At Birmingham he pressed me to have 
some coffee; but ' horrible was the idea to me,' both of that, and of 
the modest repast which I had in my own bag. I took instead a 
bottle of soda-water, iu hopes it would bring the convulsions of my 

1 Visit to the Barings. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



stomach to a crisis: but it did me 'neither ill nor gude;' and the 
hope I had been cherishing, of being let lie for half an hour on my 
back in the ladies ' waiting room, also went the way of most of our 
human hopes, the place being so crowded and the smells from the 
dining-room so pungent that I was glad to return to the carriage. 

Mr. Wedgwood kept insisting to the last moment that I ought to 
stop at Birmingham, but I knew better than that. Just as the train 
was starting, the clerk of the station (at least Mr. Wedgwood took 
him for such) jumped up to the window, touched by compassion 
for my ghastly appearance, and said to me encouragingly: ' I have 
told the guard to attend to you, ma'am, and take you out at any 
station where you may wish to be left!' When Mr. Wedgwood 
went away I had got over the worst of it, and could laugh at his 
proposal to ask ' one of some Quakers whom he had seen in a front 
carriage to take his place in case of my faiuting all by myself.' 
What advantage could there be in providing me with a Quaker, in 
preference to all others? 

The rest of the journey was got over without anymore faintings, 
anil I found Helen and Maggie at the station. But, worn out with 
so much sickness, and having taken nothing from breakfast time 
but the soda-water, you may fancy I was in no state to resist the 
horror I had been feeling all the way at the notion of entering this 
house again ' ; and when the rest came all about me in the passage, 
instead of being able to feel glad to see them, something twisted it- 
self about my throat and across my breast as if I were going to be 
strangled, and I could get no breath without screaming. In fact, I 
suppose I had been in what they call hysterics, for the first time, 
and I hope the last, in my life; for it is a very ugly thing, I can 
tell you — must be just the next thing to being hanged. But it is 
all over now ; and my uncle was so very good to me, he who so 
hates all that sort of thing, that you would have felt, as I do this 
morning, quite grateful to him. The girls, of course, were equally 
good, but their patience was more natural. I have got Alick's 
room, he having gone out to sleep, and it is all made as nice as pos- 
sible for me; and, though I did not get much sleep last night, I 
daresay I shall get on well enough in that department when I am 
once quieted. 

Maggie brought me the prettiest little breakfast to my bedroom : 
a little plate of strawberries and all sorts of dainties, that looked 
quite like Templand. It was right to come; though yesterday one 
would have said, I had really run away from you, and was spend- 
ing money very distractedly for the purpose of getting myself tor- 
mented. Now that I am up I feel really as well as before I left 
London, so do not be anyways anxious about me. 

Your own 

J. C. 

LETTER 64. 
To T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

Liverpool: June 3", 1844. 

Thanks, dearest, for your note and the newspaper, which was the 
best part, of my breakfast this morning — not that I had ' lost my 
happityte.' 2 I slept much better last night, in spite of cocks of 
every variety of power, a dog, and a considerable rumblement of 
carts. But the evil of these things is not doubled and tripled for 
me by the reflectian that you were being kept awake by them ; and 
what individual evil there was in them could not get the better of 
my excessive weariness. I feel as if the out-of-door sounds should 
not lay hold of my imagination for all the time I am likely to be' 
exposed to them ; and within doors all is quiet enough, and they let 
me go to bed whenever I like. 

They are all as kind and considerate as possible — even my uncle, 
who did not use to make any practical admission that there was 
such a thing as irritable nerves in the world. I suppose his own 
illness has taught him sympathy in this matter. I find him looking 
fully better than I expected, and he does not seem to me worse at 
walking than when I saw him last ; his speech is the worst thing, 
so thick that I have great difficulty in catching what he says with- 
out makiug him repeat; but this seems as much the result of the 
loss of his teeth, which he has not supplied, as of anything else. 
They complain much of his temper; but I have not seen the slight- 
est trace of ill-temper in him since I came, except for a moment 
yesterday during dinner, when he said some very sharp words to 
Jeannie, who provoked them in the first instance, and resented them 
in the second, in a way that quite astonished me, who had never 
seen her otherwise than imperturbably good-natured. I am afraid 
my Babbie has been deteriorating in 'these latter times; she looks 
most painfully indolent and young ladyish. I have got into no free 
communication with her yet; alone with me, she is the same gentle, 
sweet Babbie as ever, but impenetrable. I shall find out what is at 
the bottom of all this by-and-by. Helen is grown more like my 

1 Bringing back remembrance of her mother. 

2 A patient in the York Asylum (country attorney, I was told), a small, shriv- 
elled, elderly man, sat dining among others, being perfectly harmless, at the 
governor's table there. He ate pretty fairly; but every minute or two incon- 
solably flung down his knife and fork, stretched out his palms, and twisting 
his poor countenance into utter woe, gave a low pathetic howl : ' I've la-ast mi 
happetayte!' The wretchedest scarecrow of humanity I almost ever saw, 
who had found his 'immeasurable of misery in that particular 'loss'! Date 
would be autumn 1819; my first visit to England— not farther south than York 
as yet. 



aunt Jeannie in all respects: a higher praise one cannot giv^ 
The one that pleases me least of all is Alick; his Toryism is p^ 
fectly insupportable aud seems to be awakening reaction even in 
my uncle. Even the Letter-business ' Alick defeuds, because it is 
the Minister's pleasure. Not so my uncle, for whom your letter had 
set the thing in its right light; and who honestly confesses, with 
all devotion to the powers that be, that ' where such things are do- 
ing there must come a breakdown. ' 

I have not written to Mrs. Paulet yet. A letter from Geraldine, 
which was lying for me here, informed me that she (Mrs. Paulet) 
had been salivated through mistake ; her doctor, in meaning to give 
her ipecacuanha four times a day, had been giving her mercury to 
that extent. Whereupon Geraldine observes, ' if she were an ugly 
woman one would not mind it so much.' 

I hope you will not find the silence too delicious; there is a 
moderation to be observed in all things. I wish you to be neither 
quite miserable or quite content in my absence; at all events, as 
long as you are finding the silence a benefit I shall take precious 
good care to keep away, as I like to have my human speech duly 
appreciated. 

Give my kind remembrances to Helen, 1 and you may tell her, as 
a thing she will fully appreciate the distress of, that on the way 
here I got myself all covered over with oil-paint, Heaven knows 
how; and it has taken nearly a quart of turpentine to clean me 
(my clothes, I mean). 

The little Scotchwoman I sent here welcomed me as if I were 
come on purpose to see her; she gives great satisfaction, and is 
grown into a perfect beauty. 

Do not, I beg of you, work too hard. 

How provoking about the fly! 3 

Bless you. 

J. C. 

LETTER 65. 

To Thomas Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

Liverpool: July 1, 1844. 

Dearest, — I was in considerable perplexity how I should manage 
on Sunday; for you cannot displease my uncle more than by de- 
clining to go to church. As early as Saturday morning he was ques- 
tioning me as to which church I meant to go. By way of compro- 
mise, I murmured something about James Martineau. 

Providence, however, kindly took the matter into its own hand, 
and arranged it so that I stayed at home and yet gave no offence. 
For when the Sunday morning came, I was sufficiently ill of head- 
ache to convince all beholders that I really could not get up ; and 
if I could not get up, it followed that I could not go to church. I 
rose before dinner, in time to address your newspaper, and to-day 
I am quite well again — that is to say, as well as one can be, living, 
as I feel to be doing just now, in a sort of exhausted receiver. The 
manner of being in this house is really — ' what shall I say? strange 
upon my honour.' The preparation and deliberation, and unweary- 
ing earnestness with which they all dress themselves three times a 
day, is a continual miracle for me, combined as it is with total 
want of earnestness about everything else in heaven or earth. I 
declare I am heartily sorry for these girls, so good naturally, so 
gentle, and even intelligent; and in this absurd way ' sailing down 
the stream of time into the ocean of eternity, for Christ's sake. 
Amen.' 4 As for Babbie, she is sunk into the merest young lady of 
them all. Her indolence is absolutely transcendental, and I cannot 
flatter myself that it is the reaction of any secret grief; the only 
confession which, with all my surprising 5 quality, I have been able 
to draw from her is that ' one ought really to have a little excite- 
ment in one's life, and there is none to be got here.' How grateful 
I ought to be to you, dear, for having rescued me out of the young- 
lady sphere! It is a thing that I cannot contemplate with the 
proper toleration. 

I wonder how you are to-day ; aud if you made out your visit 
yesterday? I am sure you are working too hard without the inter- 
ruptions of your Necessary Evil. 6 Do bid Helen, with my kind 
regards, get you a good large fowl and boil it in four quarters. 

Extracts from Liverpool letters. 

July 2. — Indeed, dear, you look to be almost unhappy enough 
already! I do not want you to suffer physically, only morally, you 
understand, and to hear of your having to take coffee at night and 
all that gives me no wicked satisfaction, but makes me quite un- 
happy. It is curious how much more uncomfortable I feel without 
you, when it is I who am going away from you, and not, as it used 
to be, you gone away from me. I am always wondering since I 
came here how I can, even in my angriest mood, talk about leaving 
you for good and all ; for to be sure, if I were to leave you to-day 

1 Sir James Graham's opening of the Mazzini correspondence, for behoof of 
Pope and Kaiser, on which I had written something to the Times. 

2 The servant. 

3 Had driven home from the station, I suppose, without me.?— for want of a 
word or hint in time. 

* Mythical grace, before meals, of an embarrassed and bashful man: ' Oh, 
Lord, we're a' sailing,' &c. 

5 Chinese personage, in the Tiro Fair Cousins, who sees almost into mill- 
stones. 

8 Herself— the dear one: 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



..i principle, I should need absolutely to go back to-morrow to 
,o bow you were taking it. 

July 5.— My uncle would not be so bad with his Toryism if it 
were not for Alick egging him on. His feelings as an honest man 
are always struggling agaiust his prejudices; but the very misgiv- 
ings he has about the infallibility of his party make him only an 
angrier partisan, and nothing can be more provoking than the 
things he occasionally says. For instance, he told me yesterday 
that ' Sir James Graham had said he only opened one of Mazzini's 

letters ; if Mazzini said he opened more he was a d d lying rascal, 

and everybody knows whether to believe the word of a geutlemau 
like Sir James or of a beggarly refugee turned out of his own 

country for misconduct. D these people! If they got leave 

to find a shelter here, what right had they to insult the Queen 
by insulting her allies?' Fancy me swallowing all that without 
answer! To be sure, the only alternative was to hold my peace 
altogether, or produce a collision that must have ended in my call- 
ing a coach. 

July 11, Seaforth House. 1 — Mrs. Paulet makes an excellent hostess 
(morally speaking). Her menage is certainly susceptible of improve- 
ment, especially in the article of cooking; but one would prefer 
living on any sort of victuals not poisoned iu such pleasant com- 
pany to having preparations of these and stupidity therewith. 

A Mrs. D., whom you saw once, came the night before last to 
stay while I stayed. She seems a sensible gentlewoman enough — a 
Unitarian without the doctrines.' But I could not comprehend at 
first why she had been brought, till at last Mrs. Paulet gave me to 
understand that she was there to use up Miss N. 3 ' Not,' she said, 
' that my sister is an illiberal person, though she believes in Christ, 
and all that sort of thing. She is quite easy to live with; but it will 
be pleasanter for herself as well as for us that she should have some- 
body to talk with of her own sort — a Catholic or Unitarian, she 
doesn't mind which.' After this initiation I can hardly look with 
gravity on these two shaking their heads into one another's faces and 
bum-bumming away on religious topics, as they flatter themselves. 

You ask where I shall be ou my birthday. My dear, in what 
view do you ask? To send me something? Now 1 positively for- 
bid you to send me anything but a letter with your blessing. It is 
a positive worry for you, the buying of things. And what is the 
chief pleasure of a birthday present? Simply that it is evidence of 
one's birthday having been remembered ; and now I know, without 
any bothering present, that you have been thinking of it, my poor 
Good, 4 for ever so long before! So write me a longer letter than 
usual, and leave presents to those whose affection stands more in 
need of vulgar demonstration than yours does. 

July 15, Seaforth. — Oh, my darling, I want to give you an em- 
phatic kiss rather than to write ! But you are at Chelsea and I at 
Seaforth, so the thing is clearly impossible for the moment. But I 
will keep it for you till I come, for it is not with words that I can 
thank you adequately for that kindest of birthday letters and its 
small enclosure — touching little key! I cried over it and laushed 
over it, and could not sufficiently admire the graceful idea — an idea 
which might come under the category of what Cavaignac used to 
call ' idees de femme,' supposed to be unattainable by the coarser 
sex! And I have put the little key to my chain and shall wear it 
there till I return. 

LETTER 66. 
John Forster, Esq., 58 Lincoln's Inn Fields. 

Chelsea: Wednesday, July 1844. 
My dear Mr. Forster,— I understand from my husband that, in 
the romantic generosity of your own heart, you offered him some 
books for me, to carry home. ' Ah! ' Had you made the proposal 
to him with a loaded pistol at his breast, he might perhaps have 
acceded ; but merely in the way of social politeness, and for 
virtue's own reward, the desperate man that should have stopped 
him on the streets with the offer of a large paper trunk would have 
had just the same chance of being listened to. He told you, and 
had the effrontery to repeat the same excuse to myself, that I 
seemed to have more books about me than I could read. Women, 
they say, will always give a varnish of duty to their inclinations! 
I wonder whether men are any better in always giving to their dis- 
inclinations a varnish of justice? What he there told you was true 
no doubt; but one of those insidious one-sided truths which in the 
practical application is equivalent to a positive falsehood. I have 
more books in the house at this moment than I can read; but what 
did that signify since I have at the same time none that I can read? 
I have read Milford, partially read Koble; Mrs. Trollope is impos- 
sible, and several others that I have impossible. In fact I am very ill 
off; and if you will still send me some books by the parcels de- 
livery, they will be a godsend. When I go to the London library, 
besides it being very difficult for me to get so far, that old whi'te 

1 Seaforth House is three miles or so down river from Liverpool, Bootle- 
ward; a bare kind of big mansion (once Gladstone senior's), in these years 
rented by the Paulets, extensive merchant people. Paulet was a good, clever- 
ish Genoese; Mrs. Paulet, an early friend of Geraldine Jewsbnry, a strange, 
Indolently ingenious, artistic, to., creature, very reverent of Ms at this time. 
— T. C. 

* A Lais without the beauty.— C. Lamb. » Mrs. Paulet's sister. 

' Good is masculine for Goody— my frequent name for her.— T. C. 



owl bothers me so with his assiduous con rersation — which, God 
knows, one does not go there for — that I eluite lose all faculty of 
choice, and end in bringing away any trash le puts into my hands, 
generally something which he considers adapted for a lady, and, at 
the same time, not likely to be inquired for by his other ladies. So 
you may fancy. Have patience with the trouble I give you. 
Always affectionately yours, 

Jane Caklylb. 

LETTER 67. 

This was my first visit to the Grange — alas, alas, how tragic-look- 
ing now! I perfectly remember the bustle there about the belated 
postman, and my letter home — which I at lenglh wrote in pencil 
1 stayed about a week. Proof-sheets of Election to the Long Par- 
liament; visit to Winchester, &c. — 'Fleming' is as yet the incon- 
solable attached of the late Charles Buller; afterwards the gossiping 
Fribble well known in ' fashionable ' society. ' Plattnauer ' she had 
just rescued from a mad-house, and was (with heroic and successful 
charity) quite taming here into his normal state: our perfectly 
peaceable guest for about a fortnight! Dismissed, launched again, 
with outfit, &c, after my return. — T. C. 

To 7'homas Carlyle, The Orange. 

Chelsea: Sept. 10 (f), 1841 

Dearest, — Your note is as lively a little image of discomfort as 
one could wish to have before coffee. Now, however, you have 
eaten and slept, and seen the Lady Harriet; aud 'all,' I hope, 'will 
bo well,' as Plattnauer says. 

For me, I am worried to the last degree: the painter, preparatory 
to the paperer, instead of rendering himself here at six in the morn- 
ing, has kept me expecting him till now — just when I am going up 
to town to 'see after my affairs.' Yesterday was very weary. 
Mazzini came, then Darwin, then Mr. Fleming, bringing me Maz- 
zini's bust, which is a horror of horrors (oh, no! you certainly shall 
not sit to that man). They were all mortally stupid, especially Mr. 
Fleming, of whom one might have carried the simile of the Duck 
in Thunder to that still more offensive one of 'Jenkin's hen.' 
Plattnauer came home in the midst, in a state of violent talkative- 
ness — the whole thing looked like Bedlam. At last they all went 
away; aud we ate our boiled mutton iu silence, somewhat sullen. 

In the evening I went to take a walk with him, and met little 

B a few steps from the door, who accompanied us in the walk, 

and came in to tea and sat there gabbing till ten o'clock. Platt- 
nauer was seized with such a detestation of him that he could not 
stay in the room for ten minutes together. He told me he had 
been ' strongly tempted to seize a poker and dash his brains out, 
and so put an end to his eternal clack in that way, since nothing 
else could stop it.' I suggested to him somewhat sternly that it 
did not become one visitor in a house to dash out the brains of 
another — a statement which he at once perceived and admitted the 
justice of. 

And now good-bye, Mr. Good; for I have de grandes choses d 
faire; and nothing since yesterday to write about that cannot be 
put into three words — God bless you. 

Your affectionate 

J. C. 

LETTER 68. 
To Thomas Carlyle, Esq., The Orange. 

Chelsea: Tuesday, Sept. 13, 1844. 

Dearest, — I have absolutely no composure of soul for writing 
just now. The fact is, I have undertaken far more this time than 
human discretion would have dreamt of putting into one week; 
knowing your horror of sweeps and carpet-beaters and 'all that 
sort of thing,' I would, in my romantic self-devotion, sweep all The 
chimneys aud lift all the carpets before you came; and had you 
arrived this day, as you first proposed, you would have found me 
still in a regular mess, threatening to thicken into 'immortal 
smash.' But by Thursday I hope to have 'got everything satisfac- 
torily arranged,' as poor Plattnauer is always saying. 

And there have oeen so many other things to take me up, besidea 
the sweeps, &c. Almost every evening somebody has been here. 
The evening of the Bullers' departure Jenkin's Hen ' came, pale aa 
a candle, with a red circle round each eye which was very touching; 
— he had evidently been crying himself quite sick and sore. Lady 
Lewis" had invited him to dine with her; but, 'he could not go 
there, he could not eat any dinner, he was afraid to go home to hi* 
own silent house — he thought I could understand his feelings, and 
so had come to pass the evening with me.' What a gift of under- 
standing people's feelings I am supposed to have — mm! Oh, my 
dear, the cat produced two kittens in your bed this morning, and 
we have drowned them — and now she also thinks I can understand 
her feelings, and is coming about my feet mewing in a way that 
quite wrings my heart. Poor thing! I never saw her take on so 
badly before. 

1 Fleming. To 'die the death of Jenkin's hen ' expressed, in AnnandftU. 
the maximum of pusillanimity. 
1 The late C. Buller's aunt. 



L/LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



43 



I 

Weill but on Saturday nigl<S<flelen had just gone to seek sugar 
for the tea when a rap came, which I preferred answering myself 
to allowing Plattnauer to ans'Ver it, and — oh, Heavens!— what 
should I see in the dark opening? A little human phenomenon, in 
a triple cornered hat! Bishop * * * again! I screamed, a good, 
genuine, horrified scream! Whereupon he stept in — and, as the 
devil would have it — on ray bad toe! and then 1 utlered a series of 
screams which made Plattnauer savage with him for the rest of the 
eveninf. He had come up to seek himself a new assistant, the old 
one being promoted. Theye is no end to his calls to London! But 
he was plainly mortally alraid of Plattnauer, who as good as told 
him he was 'one of the wind-bags,' and will not trouble us again I 
think while he is here. 

Yesterday afternoon came Henry Taylor, but only for a few 
minutes; he had been unexpectedly 'turned adrift on our shores, 
and could only wait till a Wandsworth steamer should come up. 
I was very kind to him, and he looked as if he could have kissed 
me for being glad to see him— Oh, how odd! I put on my bonnet, 
and went with him to the boat; and he complimented me on going 
out without gloves or shawl. I was the first woman he had ever 
found in this world who could go out of her house without at least 
a quarter of an hour's preparation! They have taken a house at 
Morllake, near Richmond. 

But there is no possibility of telling you all the things I have to 
tell at this writing. They will keep till you come. Only let, me 
not forget to say there is an American letter come for John, which 
I send on by this day's post. 

Your letter, written apparently on Saturday, was not read by me 
till yesterday afternoon; the postman came so long after twelve 
■when I had been under the imperative necessity to go out. Give 
my love to Mr. Baring. 

Ever your distracted 

Goody. 

LETTER 69. 

To Mrs. Russell, ThornhiU. 

Nov. 5, 1844. 
My dearest Mrs. Russell, — I suspect that my Man-of-Genius- 
Husband has forgotten old Mary as completely as if she had never 
been born, Oliver Cromwell having, as the servants at Craigen- 
puttock used to say, 'taken the whole gang to himsel'.' The wife 
of Sir Fowell Buxton has been many times heard to wish that the 
Blacks (her husband's fixed idea) were all at the bottom of the Red 
Sea; and I am afraid I have often been undutiful enough, of late 
months, to wish the memory of Cromwell at the bottom of Some- 
thing where I might hear less about it. It is at the bottom of Rub- 
bish enough, I am sure, to judge from the tremendous ransacking 
of old folios and illegible manuscripts which Carlyle is still going 
on willi; but still he manages to bring it up, in season and out of 
season, till I begin to be weary of him (the Protector), great man 
though he was. But as everything conies to an end with patience, 
he will probably get himself "written at last, and printed, and pub- 
lished; and then my husband will return to a consciousness of his 
daily life, and I shall have peace from the turmoils of the Common- 
wealth. For, if Carlyle thinks of nothing else but his Book whilst 
he is writing it, one has always this consolation, that he is the first 
to forget it when it is written. 

Meanwhile, to return to old Mary, I send an order for three 
sovereigns from my own ' pin money' (which is ample enough) to 
keep her poor old soul and body together a little longer. And I 
shall not tell Carlyle that I have done so, as I know it would vex 
him that he should have needed to be ' put in mind;' — so that, if he 
sends another supply shortly, you will understand the mystery of 
this double sending. 

I wonder how you are all at Thornhill. It seems so long since I 
have heard a word of news from that place, which I think of more 
than any other in the world; I shall hear from you one of these 
days, and understand that ' the smallest contributions will be grate- 
fully received.' 

I had a letter from Liverpool a week ago, and all was going on 
well there — my uncle better than be had been some little while be- 
fore. Jeannie and Maggie are at Auchtertool with Walter, leading 
a very good-for-nothivig life there according to their own account 
of it — engaged in perpetual tea-drinkings with ' people whom they 
can take no pleasure in,' and 'making themselves amends in sit- 
ting at home with their feet on the fender, talking over the absurdi- 
ties of the said people.' Whereupon I have written Jeannie a very 
scolding letter, which, it is to be feared, will share the common fate 
of all good advice in this world — make her angry at me, without 
putting a stop either to the tea-drinkings with people, 'one can take 
no pleasure in,' or the idle practice of sitting with her feet on the 
fender, and still worse practice of laughing at one's neighbors' ab- 
surdities rather than one's own. 

We have dreadfully cold weather here, but I have no influenza 
as yet — am on the whole well enough for all practical purposes. 
With kindest regards to your father and husband. 
Ever, dear Mrs. Russell, 

Affectionately yours, 

' JahbC. 



From Mrs. Carlyle 's Note Book. ' 

April 13, 1845. — To-day, oddly enough, while I was engaged in 
re-reading Carlyle's ' Philosophy of Clothes,' Count d'Orsay walked 
in. I had not seen him for four or five years. Last time he was as 
gav in his colours as a humming-bird — blue satin cravat, blue 
velvet waistcoat, cream-coloured coat, lined with velvet of the same 
hue, trousers also of a bright colour, I forget what; white French 
gloves, two glorious breastpins attached by a chain, and length 
enough of gold watch-guard to have hanged himself in. To-day, 
in compliment to his five more years, lie was all in black and 
brown — a black satin cravat, a brown velvet waistcoat, a brown 
coat, some shades darker than the waistcoat, lined with velvet of 
its own shade, and almost black trousers, one breastpin, a large 
pear-shaped pearl set into a little cup of diamonds, and only one 
fold of gold chain round his neck, tucked together right on the 
centre of his spacious breast with one magnificent turquoise. Well! 
that man understood his trade; if it be but that of dandy, nobody 
can deny that he is a perfect master of it, that he dresses himself 
with consummate skill! A bungler would have made no allow- 
ance for five more years at his time of life; but he had the fine 
sense to perceive how much better his dress of to-day sets off his 
slightly enlarged figure and slightly worn complexion, than the 
humming-bird colours of five years back would have done. Poor 
D'Orsay! he was born to have been something better than even the 
king of dandies. He did not say nearly so many clever things this 
time as on the last occasion. His wit, I suppose, is of the sort that 
belongs more to animal spirits than to real genius, and his animal 
spirits seem to have fallen many degrees. The only thing that fell 
from him to-day worth remembering was his account of a mask he 
had seen of Charles Fox, ' all punched and flattened as if he had 
slept in a book.' 

Lord Jeffrey came, unexpected, while the Count was here. 
What a difference! the prince of critics and the prince of dandies. 
How washed out the beautiful dandiacal face looked beside that 
little clever old man's! The large blue dandiacal eyes, you would 
have said, had never contemplated anything more interesting than 
the reflection of the handsome personage they pertained to in a 
looking-glass; while the dark penetrating ones of the other had 
been taking note of most things in God's universe, even seeing a 
good way into millstones. 

Jeffrey told us a very characteristic trait of Lord Brougham. He 
(Brougham) was saying that some individual they were talking of 
would never get into aristocratic society: first, because his manners 
were bad, and secondly, said Brougham, because there is such a 
want of truth (!) in him. In aristocratic society there is such a 
quick tact for detecting everything unveracious that no man who 
is not true can ever get on in it! ' Indeed!' said Jeffrey, ' I am de- 
lighted to hear you give such a character of the upper classes; I 
thought they had been more tolerant.' 'Oh,' said Brougham, 'I 
assure you it is the fact: any man who is deficient in veracity im- 
mediately gets tabooed in the aristocratic circles.' 

The force of impudence could no further go. 

April. — After I had been in London a short time my husband 
advised me — ironically, of course — to put an advertisement in the 
window ' House of refuge for stray dogs and cats.' The number of 
dogs and cats in distressed circumstances who imposed themselves 
on my country simplicity was in fact prodigious. Now it strikes 
me I might put in the window more appropriately, ' General aduit 
office for all the miseries of the universe.' Why does every miser- 
able man and woman of my acquaintance come to me with his and 
her woes, as if I had no woes of my own. nothing in the world to 
do but to console others? Ach Oott ! my head is getting to be a per- 
fect chaos of other people's disasters and despairs. Here has been 
that ill-fated C. J. — Next — but to begin at the beginning — return- 
ing from the savings bank I observed in the King's Road a child of 
' the lower orders, ' about two years old, in the act, it seemed, of dis- 
solving all away into tears. A crowd of tatterdemalion boys had 
gathered about it; but the genteel of both sexes were passing by on 
the other side. Of course I stopped and inquired, and learnt from the 
boys that the child was lost. There was no time for consideration if I 
meant to save the creature from going all into water, so I took its 
little hand, and bade it give over'crying and I would help it to find 
its mother. It clung to me quite trustfully and dried itself up, and 
toddled along by my side. The cortege of boys dropped off by de- 
grees, and then I fell to questioning my foundling, but with the 
blankest result. Of its name it knew not a syllable, nor of the 
street where it lived. Two words, ' Up here,' ' up here,' seemed to 
constitute its whole vocabulary. In pursuance of this direction, I 
led it into Manor street; but in the midst it stood still with a mazed 
look, and proved that it had yet another monosyllable by scream- 
ing 'No, no.' Here we were joined by a lad of fourteen smoking 
a short pipe, and carrying a baby a degree smaller than mine. He 
evidently suspected I was stealing the child, and felt it his duty 
not to lose sight of me and it. Nay, he took its other hand with- 
out asking, 'by your leave,' and I, suspecting his intent, though 
not very flattering to me, did not protest. By-and-by he hailed a 
bigger lad, and with cockney silence deposited his own baby in 

1 Only fragments of these note-books survive. Most of them were de- 
stroyed by Mrs. Carlyle herself 



44 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE' 



the arms of the other, put his short pipe into his pocket (a move 
which I was really thankful for) and so remained free to devote 
himself to my baby with heart and hand. By this time my baby 
was wearied, and so was I, so I begged the boy, since he would ac- 
company me, to carry it to my house, as there was clearly no 
chance of our discovering its home. In the boy's arms my baby 
grew a little more expansive. ' Have you a father? ' the boy asked 
it. Answer, an inarticulate sound. ' Is your father living? ' 
asked the boy more loudly. The child smiled sweetly, and said, 
so that we could understand : ' I have a pretty brother, and they 
put him in a pretty coffin.' Ah, me! At the bottom of my own 
street I met two policemen, whom I asked how I should proceed 
to get the child restored to its family. ' Send it to the police sta- 
tion.' That I would not. 'Then send your address to the police 
station.' That I would. So I gave the boy sixpence and sent him 
when he had set down the child at my own door, to the station 
house with a slip of paper — 

' Stray child at Mrs. Carlyle's, 

' No. 5 Cheyne Row.' 

The boy went off with an evident change in his feeling towards 
me, through the fact, I suppose, of my having spoken to the po- 
liceman, and partly perhaps on account of my respectable-looking 
house, and the sixpence. Helen was at work in the bedrooms, so 
I was obliged to keep my child in the room with me, that it might 
not fill the house with wail, to the astonishment and wrath of my 
husband at his writing, as it would have been sure to do if left all 
alone in the kitchen. 

And now ecco la coinhinazibne. On the table was a note, which 
had been left, Helen said, by a young lady, who looked so dis- 
tressed at finding me out that she, Helen, had invited her to come 
in and wait for me, but she preferred waiting at some shop in the 
neighbourhood. I opened the note with a presentiment that some- 
body's ' finer sensibilities of the heart ' were about to get me into 
new trouble, and so it was. This lady, whom I had seen but once 
in my life, felt it due to herself to make some disclosures to me ; 
in addition to certain awkward disclosures already made to me on 
her subject, ' and to throw herself on my mercy for advice under a 
new misfortune.' And the child! I could not refuse to see anyone 
who had come so great a way, and with such prodigious faith, to 
' throw herself on my mercy,' but how to keep the child quiet dur- 
ing her ' disclosures?' I saw only one chance, to give it as much 
butter and bread and hard biscuit as would suffice to keep it 
munching for an hour or two: and this was forthwith brought, and 
with that consideration for Us details, which Cavaignac used to call 
my ruling passion, a table-cloth was spread on my new carpet, in 
the midst of which the child was placed, that whatever mess it 
might create should be without permanent consequences. My 
preparations were hardly completed when the lady arrived — how 
changed since our former interview! I had never before found 
myself in the presence of a woman in my own sphere of life in 
such a situation. I have a strong prejudice against women 'in 
such a situation ' in the abstract. It indicates such stupidity. But 
this poor woman in the concrete, covered with crimson and tears, 
went to my heart like a knife. Stranger as she was to me, I could 
' do no otherwise ' bu treceive her into my open arms, not figura- 
tively but literally, and then this reception, ' so different from what 
she had dared to hope,' produced a sort of hysteric on her part, 
and she laid her poor face on my lap, and covered my hands with 
kisses. Oh, mercy! What a false position for one woman to be in 
towards another! It was a desperate interview. The only comfort 
' was that the child gave us no trouble, but munched away uncon- 
scious of the tragic scene, never stirring from its enchanted table- 
cloth. A greater contrast could not be than betwixt these my 
two protegees for the time being — that two-year-old duddy child, 
drowning its recent sorrows in bread-and-butter, ignorant that 
there were such things in the world; and that elegantly dressed 
young lady living and having her being in sentiment, forgetful ap- 
parently that the world contained anything else. At last she went 
away, consoled a little by my kindness perhaps; but as for my ad- 
vice,' though I gave her the best, she will not of course follow a 
syllable of it. 

When Carlyle came to dinner, he looked rather aghast at my 
child. 'Only think,' said I, to enlist his sympathies on its behalf, 
' what a state of distraction the poor mother must be in all this 
while! ' 

'The poor mother,' repeated he scornfully; 'how do you know 
that the poor mother did not put it down there in the King's Road 
for some such simpleton as you to pick it up, and saddle yourself 
with it for life? ' 

This was giving me a new idea. I began to look at the child 
with a mixed feeling of terror and interest; to look at it critically 
as a possible possession, while little ideas of an educational sort 
flitted through my brain. This state of uncertainty was cut short, 
however, by a young woman knocking at the door, and, with 
many protestations of gratitude, applying for the creature, about 
five hours after I had found it. The young woman was not the 
mother, but a grown-up sister. The poor mother was ' at home in 
fits.' They feared the child had staggered down into the Thames. 
It evinced no ' fine feelings ' at sight of its sister; in fact, it looked 
with extreme indifference on her and indicated an inclination to 



remain where it was. But so soonl^she took it into her arms, it 
began to tell her 'its travel's history' with renewed tears, and went 
off into a new explosion. 

April 27. — Last night we had a novelty in the way of society, a 
sort of Irish rigg. Mr. L came in before tea with a tail con- 
sisting of three stranger Irishmen — real hot and hot live Irishmen, 
such as I have never before sat at meat with or met ' in flow of soul,' 
newly imported, with the brogue 'rather exquisite,' and repale 
' more exquisite still.' They came to adore Carlyle, and also re- 
monstrate with him, almost with tears in their eyes, on his opin- 
ion, as stated in his 'Chartism,' that 'a finer people than the Irish 
never lived; only they have two faults: they do lie and they do 
steal.' The poor fellows got into a quite epic strain over this most 
calumnious exaggeration. (Pity but my husband would pay some 
regard to the sensibilities of ' others,' and exaggerate less!) 

The youngest one — Mr. Pigot — a handsome youth of the ro- 
mantic cast, pale-faced, with dark eyes and hair, and an ' Eman- 
cipation of the Species ' melancholy spread over him — told my 
husband, after having looked at and listened to him in compara- 
tive silence for the first hour, with 'How to observe ' written in 
every lineament, that now he (Mr. Pigot) felt assured he (my hus- 
band) was not in his heart so unjust towards Ireland as his writings 
led one to suppose, and so he would confess, for the purpose of re; 
trading it, the strong feeling of repulsion with which he had come 
to him that night. ' Why, in the name of goodness then, did you 
come?' I could not help asking, thereby producing a rather awk- 
ward result. Several awkward results were produced in this ' nicht 
wi' Paddy.' They were speaking of the Scotch intolerance towards 
Catholics, and Carlyle as usual took up the cudgels for intolerance. 
' Why,' said he, ' how could they do otherwise? If one sees one's 
fellow-creature following a damnable error, by continuing in which 
the devil is sure to get him at last, and roast him in eternal fire and 
brimstone, are you to let him go towards such consummation? or 
are you not rather to use all means to save him ? ' 

'A nice prospect for you to be roasted in fire and brimstone,' I 

said to Mr. L , the red-hottest of Catholics. 'For all of us,' 

said poor L , laughing good-naturedly; 'we are all Catho- 
lics.' Nevertheless the evening was got over without bloodshed; at 
least, malice prepense bloodshed, for a little blood was shed involun- 
tarily. While they were all three at the loudest in their defence of 
Ireland against the foul aspersions Carlyle had cast on it, and 
' scornfully ' cast on it, one of their noses burst out bleeding. It 
was the nose of the gentleman whose name we never heard. He 
let it bleed into his pocket handkerchief privately till nature was re- 
lieved, and was more cautious of exciting himself afterwards. The 

third, Mr. D , quite took my husband's fancy, and mine also 

to a certain extent. He is a writer of national songs, and came 
here to ' eat his terms. With the coarsest of human faces, decid- 
edly as like a horse's as a man's, he is one of the people that I 
should get to think beat iful. there is so much of the power both of 
intellect and passion in * ,s physiognomy. As for young Mr. Pigot, 
I will here, in the spirit of prophecy, inherited from my great great 
ancestor, John Welsh, the Covenanter, make a small prediction. If 
there be in his time an insurrection in Ireland, as these gentlemen 
confidently anticipate, Mr. Pigot will rise to be a Robespierre of 
some sort; will cause many heads to be removed from the shoulders 
they belong to; and will 'eventually' have his own head removed 
from his own shoulders, Nature has written on that handsome 
but fatal-looking countenance of his, quite legibly to my prophetic 
eye, ' Go and get thyself beheaded, but not before having lent a 
hand towards the great work of "immortal smash." ' 

All these Irishmen went off without their hats, and had to return 
into the room to seek them. Two of them found theirs after a 
moderate search. The third, the one whose nose bled, had hid his 
under the sofa, where I discovered it by help of my aforementioned 
second-sight. I have now seen what Sir James Graham would call 
' fine foamy patriotism, ' dans sa phis simple expression. 



LETTER 70. 

In the summer of 1845 Mrs. Carlyle went alone to Lancashire to 
stay with her uncle at Liverpool, and with Mrs. Paulet at Seafortli. 
From thence were written the ensuing letters. — J. A. F. 

To T. Carlyle, Chelsea. 

First day in Fliitz, 1 
Liverpool, July 23, 1845. 

Dearest, — It is all as well as could be expected. I arrived with- 
out accident, not even much tired, an hour and half before I was 
looked for— in fact between five and six. Consequently there was 
nobody to meet me, and I had some difficulty in getting myself a 
car, and at the same time keeping watch over my trunk and dress- 
ing-box ; the former indeed was getting itself coolly borne away by a 
porter amongst some other people's luggage, when I laid my hand 
on it, and indicated : Thus far shalt thou go but no farther. My 
uncle I met tumbling downstairs, with what speed he might, pre- 
pared for being kissed to death; then came Maggie; and lastly 
Babbie, flushed and embarrassed, and unsatisfactor}'-looking; for, 
alas! she had been all day preserving strawberries, and had not ex- 

1 1 1 tila Schmelze's Journey to Fliitz, by Jean Paul. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CAKLYLE. 



45 



pected me so soon, and was not o, T --essed: to be an unwise virgin, 
taken with one's lamp untrimruea, means here to be caught in de- 
shabille. A 1 have not seen yet — tant mieux, for I don't like 

him 'the least in the world.' Johnnie has sunk away into ' an un- 
intelligible whinner.' ' 

On the whole, there ialittle ' food for the young soul, Mr. Carlyle! ' 
But she (as Mazzini insists on calling the soul, and I think with 
reason; making the soul into an it being — what shall I say? — a 
desecration, upon my honour) — ' she ' can do without visible food, 
like my leech, for all the while 'she' is to abide in the place. And 
' one has always one's natural affections left.' And then to ' give 
pleasure to others! ' The compensation that lies in that under all 
circumstances! Ah ! 

I am established in Mary's little room (off my uncle's) which they 
have made as tidy as possible for me. There is a tradition of 'a 
little wee wifie that lived in a shoe; ' but I am still more curiously 
lodged, for this room is for all the world like a boot, the bed occu- 
pying the heel of it, a little bed like a coffin. 

In so new a predicament, of course, I could not sleep; the best I 
made of it was a doze from time to time of a few minutes' duration, 
from which I started up with a sensatiou of horror, like what must 
have been felt by the victim of the Iron Shroud. For the rest, 
there was a cat opera, iu which the prima donna had an organ that 
'bet the worl;' 2 then there are some half-dozen of stout-lunged 
cocks, and a dog that lyrically recognises every passing event. Per- 
haps, like the pigs, I shall get used to it; if not I must just go all 
the sooner to Seaforth, where there is at least a certain quiet. 

My coach i'ul of men turned out admirably, as silent as could be 
wished, yet not deficient in the courtesies of life. The old gentle- 
man with moustachios and a red face was Colonel Cleveland, of the 
artillery, 'much distinguished in the wars.' There was another 
old gentleman still more miraculous than Rio;' 3 for he had one 
eye boiled, the other parboiled, no leg aud his mind boiled to 
jelly, and yet he got to Liverpool just as well as the rest of 
us. The little man opposite me, who was absorbed in Eugene 
Sue's female Bluebeard, was a German, and, pleased to see me 
reading his language, he gave me his pea-jacket to wrap my legs 
in, for we were all perished with cold. The English dandy with 
the heaven-blue waistcoat slept the whole way, exactly in the atti- 
tude of ' James' waiting for the Sylphide to come and kiss him; but 
he might sleep long enough, I fancy, before any 'bit of fascination' 
would take the trouble. 

And now you must 'excuse us the day.' After such a night, I 
can neither 'make wits,' 4 nor, what were more to the purpose, 
senses, for your gratification. I shall go and walk, and look at the 
Great Britain packet; if one does not enlighten one's mind in the 
shipping department here, I see not how else one shall enlighten it. 

Babbie has just knocked to beg I would give her love to you, and 
most sincere thanks for the Book, 5 the preface of which I read 
aloud to my uncle at breakfast; and he pronounced it ' very satiri- 
cal ' — a true speak. 

God bless .you, dear. I do not wish you to feel lonely, nor will 
you; and yet I should not precisely like if you missed me none at 
all. Your distracted Janekln. 

LETTER 71. 
To T. Carlyle, Chelsea. 

Liverpool: Friday, July 25, 1845. 

Dearest, —You have interpreted the library note too ironically; it 
is a polite bond-fide offer of the book to read. I applied for it some 
six months ago without result; the copy I had was lent to me by 
Darwin. 

Tout va bien ici; le soinineil manque. The cat-operas are a fixed 
thing; they too, it would seem, have their Thursday night. Last 
night it was Der Freyseh'utz, or something as devilish, and the per- 
formance did not cease till two in the morning; when the cocks 
took possession of the stage, 'bits of fascination,' 6 and carried on 
the glory till breakfast-time. Add to which occasional explosions 
of bad feeling from the dog, and an incessant braying of carts from 
early dawn, going to and from the quarry; and through all, the 
sensation of being pent up in the foot of a boot. You may fancy 
the difficulty experienced by a finely organised human being, like 
me, in getting even a Scotch ' poor's ' ' minimum of sleep under 
such circumstances ! Nevertheless, and although the wind here is 
constantly in the east, and although the eternal'smell of roast meat 
in this house is oppressive to soul and sense, ' it is but fair to state ' 8 
that I feel less tendency to 'dee and do nought ava' 9 than when I 



1 Some fool's speech to me, I forget whose. 
3 Annandale for ' beat the world. 

3 Rio, a wandering, rather loud and headlong, but innocent-hearted, French 
friend, Neo-Catholic, &e. I believe is still living at Paris; a stranger here for 
twenty-five years now. 

4 BOlte's phrase for the sad operation of being with effort ' witty.' 
s ' Book,' I suppose will be Life of Schiller. 2nd edition. 

• Two London mechanics paused at a print-shop window where I was. 
1 Ha! ' said one to the other in a jaimty knowing tone, ' Tag-li-oni ! Bit of 
fascination there.' Poor Taglioni was, indeed, elastic as india-rubber, but as 
meaningless too, poor soul.— T. C. 

7 Mazzini's, meaning paupers. 

B Jeffrey, in Edinburgh Review, continually. 

* Sandy Blackadder," factor at Hoddam (long ago), a heavy, baggy, big 



left London. Elizabeth Pepoli would impute the improvement to 
' the greater variety of food' — oh, Heavens! — and above all to the 
excellent porter. I who, though my Sylphide's wings have long 
fallen off, can still manage by stilts and other means to keep myself 
above such depths of prose as that comes to, find 'the solution' 
elsewhere: namely in 'the great comfort' which it is somehow to 
be made sensible from time to time that if oneself is miserable, 
others are ' perhaps more to be pitied that they are not miserable.' 
Here sufficient for the day is the marketing, and eating, and dress- 
ing thereof! And a new satin dress can diffuse perfect beautitude 
through an immortal soul! The circulating library satisfies all their 
intellectual wants, and flirtation all the wants of their hearts; it is 
very convenient to be thus easily satisfied. One looks plump, 
digests without effort, and sleeps in spite of all the cats and cocks 
in the world. But somehow ' I as one solitary individual' ' would 
rather remain in Hell — the Hell I make for myself with my restless 
digging — than accept this drowsy placidity. Yes, I begin to feel 
again that I am not la demure desfernrnes. which has been oftener 
than anything else my reading of myself in these the latter times; 
a natural enough reaction against the exorbitant self-conceit which 
put me at fourteen on setting up for a woman of genius. Now I 
should be only too pleased to feel myself a ' woman without the 
genius;' a woman, not a 'chimera,' ' a miserable fatuity.' But this 
is fully worse than a description of scenery — description of one's 
own inside! Bah! who likes one well enough to find that other 
than a bore? 

Well, I did the Great Britain. It is three hundred aud twenty 
feet long aud fifty feet broad, and all of iron, and has six sails; and 
one pays a shilling to see it, and it was not 'a good joy.' All these 
prodigious efforts for facilitating locomotion seem to me a highly 
questionable investment of human faculty; people need rather to be 
taught to sit still. Yesterday I went with the girls and Mr. Liddle 
(the man who is so like a doll) to a flower-show in the Botanical 
Gardens. The flowers were well enough, but few of them — the 
company shockingly bad; really these Liverpool ladies look, two- 
thirds of them, improper; the democratic tendency of the age in. 
dress has not penetrated hither, I assure you ; not a woman that 
Helen might not stand in admiration before, and exclaim ' How 
expensive! "- 

To-day we are going 'across the water' with my uncle; I make 
a point of accepting every lark proposed to me, however uninviting. 
I am here for what Helen calls ' a fine change,' and the more move- 
ment the better. If I do not get good of the movement, I shall at 
least get good of the sitting still after it. My uncle is very kind 
to me. Alick is rather improved, speaks not at all on politics in 
my hearing. Johnnie I have found a use for. I play one game at 
chess with him, every night. ' He beats us a' for a deep thought.' * 

Kind regards to Helen, and compliments to the leech. 

Do not work too hard. 

Ever your affectionate 

Jane W. C. 

' Noli bena. 4 I've got no bacca." 

Extracts of Further Letters from Liverpool. 
To T. Carlyle, Chelsea. 

July 27, 1845. — They are all gone to church and I am here alone, 
enjoying virtue's. {Roman virtue's) own reward. My uncle at the 
last minute cameMo me iu the room where I had fortified myself 
(morally), and asked with a certain enthusiasm, ' Are you not going 
to church?' 'No, I have no thought of it.' 'And why not?' 
(crescendo). ' Because your minister is a ranting jackass, that cracks 
the drum of one's ears.' ' Who told you that?' (stamping like my 
grandfather.) ' I do not choose to compromise anyone by naming 
my authority.' ' And what has that to do with going to a place of 
worship? ' ' Nothing whatever; but it has a great deal to do with 
staying away from a place that is not of worship.' He looked at 
me over his spectacles for an instant as if doubtful whether to eat 
me raw or laugh; and 'eventually, thanks God,' 5 he chose the lat- 
ter part. The girls, who came in fear and trembling to pick up my 
fragments, were astonished to find that I had carried the day. We 
get on famously, my uncle and I, and by dint of defiance, tempered 
with kisses, I can manage him better than anyone else does. 

July 30. — My uncle has enjoyed my visit very much. I wrote to 
him beforehand on the subject of his 'detestable politics,' and we 
have had no flares up this time. The only one I have witnessed 

was last night at cards. He and A were playing at icarte on a 

little table in a corner, very silently and amicably to all appearance; 
the rest of us were sewiug or reading. Suddenly the little table 
flew into the air on the point of my uncle's foot, and a shower of 
cards fell all over the floor! ' D these eternal cards! ' said he 

long-winded man, was overheard one day, in a funeral company which had 
notyet risen, discoursing largely in monotonous undertones to some neigh- 
bour about the doings, intentions, and manifold insignificant proceedings of 
some anonymous feliow-man; but at length wound up with ' and then he deed 
and did nought ava.' 
1 My father's phrase. 3 Helen's phrase in the National Gallery. 

3 Admiring rema/k of an Annandale mother about her particularly stupid 
huge lout of a son. 

4 Dragoon's letter to his beloved in some police report which we had read 
years ago. • Happy with you to the end of eternity," and then this noti be'na. 

5 Mazzini. 



46 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYfl 



fiercely, as we all stared up at him in astonishment. ' Hang them! 
Curse "them to hell! ' They all looked frightened; for me, the sud- 
denness of the thing threw me into a fit of laughter, in which my 
uncle himself was the first to join. This morning at breakfast 
something was said about cards to he taken to Scotland. 'But,' 
said I, ' I thought they had been all sent last night to hell.' 'Pooh!' 
said my uncle quite gravely, ' that was only one pack.' 

I am not wise in writing on with 'my brains' (as Rio would say) 
tormenting me in this way. But what to do? One's Good, if not 
feeling so lonely as might be wished, is in fact lonely enough, and 
one's self without one's owu red bed to retire into. Cannot I stay 
in my ' boot ' and be quiet? No. I get beside myself pent up there ; 
latterly I have been bolting out of it through the men's room, 
whether they were clothed or no, like a bottle of ginger beer burst- 
ing the cork! 'Uncle, I beg your pardon but I must get out!' 
'Weel, weel,' hiding himself behind the curtain, 'there is no help 
for it.' 

God bless you, dear. I am in the Devil's own humour today if 
you care to know it — but ever yours, not without affection. 

July 31. — Yesterday in the evening came Dr. James C , and 

a young N , all in black, this last being just returned from the 

funeral of his only sister, a promising girl of sixteen, the poor 
mother's chief comfort of late years. I recollected the time 

when Mrs. N , then Agnes L , consulted me whether she 

ought to marry J. N . Where were all these young N 's 

then — the lad who sate there looking so sadly, the girl who had 

just. been laid under the earth? Had Agnes L lived true to 

the memory of her first love, would these existences have been for 
ever suppressed by her act? If her act could have suppressed 
them, what pretension have they to call themselves immortal, 
eternal? What comfort is there in thinking of the young girl just 
laid in her grave? ' My dear, you really ought not to go on with 
that sort of thing — all that questioning leads to nothing. We know 
nothing about it and cannot know, and what better should we be if 
we did?' ' All very true, Mr. Carlyle. but' — at least one cannot ac- 
cept such solution on the authority of others, even of the wisest — 
one must have worked it out for oneself. And the working of it 
out is a sore business, very sore; especially with ' a body apt to fall 
into holes.' 

August 5, Sertforth. — Geraldine (Jewsbury) came yesterday after- 
noon, looking even better than when in London, and not triste, as 

R expected, by any means. She has brought a good stock 

of cigaritos with her, which is rather a pity, as I had just begun to 
forget there was such a weed as tobacco in the civilised world. 
She is very amusing and good-humoured, does all the ' wits ' of the 
party: and Mrs. Paulet and I look to the Pure Reason and Practi- 
cal Endeavour. I fancy you would find our talk amusing if you 
could assist at it in a cloak of darkness, for one of the penalties of 
being ' the wisest man and profouudest thinker of the age' is the 
royal one of never hearing the plain, ' unornamented ' truth spok- 
en; everyone striving to be wise and profound inritn naturd in the 
presence of such a one, and making himself as much as possible into 
his likeness. And this is the reason that Arthur Helps and so many 
others talk very nicelv to me, and bore you to distraction. With 
me they are not afraid to stand ou the little 'broad basis' of their 
own individuality, such as it is. With you they are always balanc- 
ing themselves like Taglioni, on the point of their moral or intel- 
lectual great toe. 

If I were going ' at my age and with my cough ' to take up a 
mission, it would "be the reverse of P. W 's. Instead of boil- 
ing up individuals into the species I would draw a chalk circle 
round every individuality, and preach to it to keep within that, 
and preserve and cultivate its identity at the expense of ever so 
much lost gilt of other people's ' isms.' 

August 10. — ' Monsieur le President! I begin to be weary of the 
treatment I experience here.' 1 Always my 'bits of letters' and 
'bits of letters,' as if I were some nice little child writing in half 
text on ruled paper to its God-papa! Since Jeffrey was pleased to 
compliment me on my 'bits of convictions,' I have not had my 
'rights of woman ' so trifled with. He paid the penalty of his as- 
surance in losing from that time my valuable correspondence; with 
you I cannot so easily cease to correspond ' for reasons which it 
may be interesting not to state.' But a woman of my invention can 
always find legitimate means of revenging herself on those who do 
not treat her with the respect due to genius, who put her off with a 
pat on the head or a chuck under the chin when she addresses them 
in all the full-grown gravity of five feet five inches and three-quar- 
ters without her shoes! So let us hear no more of my ' bits of let- 
ters' unless you are prepared to front a nameless retribution. 

J. M seems to be still fighting it out with his conscience, 

abating no jot of heart or hope. If he were beside you I am per- 
suaded he would soon become the sincerest disciple that you ever 
had; he seems so very near kicking his foot through the whole 
Unitarian concern already. He was arguing witli Geraldine about 
the 'softening tendencies of our age,' 'the sympathy for knaves 
and criminals,' ' the impossibility of great minds being disjoined 
from great morality,' 'the stupidity of expecting to be happy 
through doing good.' 

Nothinsr could be more orthodox! But what would have 'en- 



1 French Revolution— speaker in Jacobin Club, evening of August 10. 



grushed' him with you more ^ ox n anything was in talking of 
Cromwell's doings in Ireland. 'After all,' he said, ' people make 
a great deal more outcry over massacres than there is any occasion 
for; one does not understand that exorbitant respect lor human 
life, in overlooking or violating everything that makes it of any 
value. v 

August 14. — A delicate attention ! This morning the bell for get- 
ting up did not ring. I lay awake till near nine expecting it, and 
then I thought I might as well dress. When I came down every- 
body had finished breakfast. ' But the bell did not ring,' said I, 
quite shocked. 'Oh, no, madam,' said Mr. Paulet; 'they told me 
you were so witty at dinner yesterday that 30U had better be let 
slumber this morning as long as possible, in case of your feeling a 
little exhausted! ' And so actually the bell had not been rung in 
consideration of my incessant wit. 

I had a long and really excellent letter from Helen yesterday, 
containing a little box of salve for my bunions. She had ' tried it 
on herself first ' and found it quite satisfactory. Tell her that her 
letter was quite a treat for me, so copious and sensible, and not 
without wits even! She tells me that ' the child ' (the leech) ' gets 
always more lively,' and she is becoming 'rather fond of it.' 
She suggests also, very sensibly, that I should bid you give her 
timely notice when you leave, ' as she would like to have all your 
things nice for you, and you might never think of telling her till 
the very day!' 

I have your letter. Sometimes the postman prefers taking them 
to Dale Street, and I have .•> wail all day in uncertainty, and then 
lam 'vaixed.' No address seems able to secure us against this 
contretemps. I wish I were there, dear Good, to baiser you d la 
front.' I could not reconcile myself to following my pleasures, or 
at least my eases, here while you are so hard worked and solitary, 
if it were not that my health is really improving, and I look for- 
ward to being less of an Egyptian skeleton lady for you through 
the winter by this egoism I am indulging in at present. 

Mrs. Buller got no letter from me; what with eating, and sleep- 
ing, and walking, and driving, and having my feet rubbed, and 
settling the general questional have really no time forwiiling 
except to one's Good. 

Every night, too, after Mr. Paulet comes home, I play one or 
more games at chess; which is using him up famously. He is 
wonderfully patient of us all, and 'not without glimmerings of 
intelligence'! My paper and everybody's is done; so you must put 
up with scraps. 

Your own 

Adorable Wife. 

LETTER 72. 
To T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

Liverpool: Saturday, Aug. 16, 1845. 

Dearest, — I never know whether a letter is welcomer when it 
arrives after having been impatiently waited for, or like yesterday's, 
'quite promiscuously,' when I was standing 'on the broad basis' 
of, 'Blessed arc they who do not hope, for they shall not be dis- 
appointed!' I assure you I am the only person obliged by your 
writing; it makes a very palpable difference in my amiability 
throughout the day whether I have a letter to begin it with. 

Last night we went, according to programme, to Mrs. A 's, 

and 'it is but fair to state' that the drive there anil back in the 
moonlight was the best of it. The party did me no ill, however; 
it was not a Unitarian crush like the last, but adapted to the size of 
the room: select, moreover, and with the crowning grace of an 
open window. There was an old gentleman who did the impossi- 
ble to inspire me with a certain respect; Y they called him, 

and his glory consists in owning the Prince's Park, and throwing 
it open to ' poors.' ' Oh, what a dreadful little old man! He plied 
me with questions, and suggestions about you, till I was within a 
trifle of putting 'my finger in the pipy o' Mm.' 5 'How did Mr. 
Carlyle treat Oliver Cromwell's crimes? ' ' His what? ' said I. ' The 
atrocities he exercised on the Irish.' ' Oh, you mean massacring a 
garrison or two? All that is treated very briefly.' 'But Mr. Car- 
lyle must feel a just horror of that.' ' Horror? Oh, none at all, I 
assure you! He regards it as the only means under the circum- 
stances to save bloodshed.' The little old gentleman bounced back 
in his chair, and spread out his two hands, like a duck about to 
swim, while there burst from his lips a groan that made everyone 

look at us. What had I said to their Mr. Y ? By-and-by 

my old gentleman returned to the charge. 'Mr. Carlyle must be 
feeling much delighted about the Academical Schools? ' ' Oh, not 
he has been so absorbed in bis own work lately that he has not 
been at leisure to be delighted about anything.' 'But, madam! a 
man may attend to his own work, and attend at the same time to 
questions of great public interest.' ' Do you think so? I don't.' 
Another bounce on the chair. Then, with a sort of awe, as of a 
'demon more wicked than your wife:' 3 'Do you not think, madam, 
that more good might be done by taking up the history of the 

' Note. p. 45. . , • . 

3 ( Iryiner baby unappeasable. ' Put your finger in ta pipie o t (little wind- 
pipe), said some Highland body. 

3 Peter Nimmo's permon on Ananias and Sapphira: 'Tempted by soma 
demon more wicked than his wife.' 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



/ 

actual time than of past ages? [ Such a lime as this, so full of im- 
provements in arts and sciences, the whole face of Europe getting 
itself changed! Suppose Mr. Carlyle should bring out a yearly 

Volume about all this? ' This was Y 's last flight of eloquence 

with me, for catching the eyes of a lady (your Miss L of 

'The Gladiator') fixed on me with the most ludicrous expression 
of sympathy, I fairly burst out laughing till the tears ran down; 
ami when I had recovered myself, the old gentleman had turned 

for compensation to J. M . J. had reasons for being civil to 

him which I had not, Mr. Y being his landlord; but he 

seemed to be answering him in his sleep, while his waking thoughts 
were intent on an empty chair betwixt Geraldine and me, and 
eventually he made it his own. As if to deprecate my confound- 
ing him with these Y 's, he immediately began to speak in 

the most disrespectful mauner of Mechanics Institutes ' and all 
that sort of thing;' and then we got on these eternal Vestiges 
of Creation, 1 which he termed, rather happily, 'animated mud.' 
Geraldine and Mrs. Paulet were wanting to engage him in a doc- 
trinal discussion, which they-Ctre extremely fond of; 'Look at 
Jane,' suddenly exclaimed G(, .tldine.'she is quizzing us in her own 

mind. You must know ' (t?' M ) ' we cannot get Jane to care 

obit about doctrines.' 'I should think not,' said M , with 

great vivacity ; 'Mrs. Carlyle is the most concrete woman that I 
have seen for a long while.' 'Oh,' said Geraldine, 'she puts all 
her wisdom into practice, and so never gets into scrapes.' 'Yes,' 

said M in a tone ' significant of much,' ' to keep out of doctrines 

is the only way to keep out of scrapes! ' Was uot that a creditable 
speech in a Unitarian? 

Miss L is a frank, rather agreeable, woman, forty or there- 
abouts, who looks as if she had gone through a good deal of hard- 
ship; not 'a domineering genius' by any means,' but with sense 
enough for all practical purposes, such as admiring you to the 
skies, and Cromwell too. The rest of the people were 'chiefly 

musical, Mr. Carlyle.' Mrs. A is very much fallen off in her 

singing since last year; I suppose, from squalling so much to her 
pupils. She is to dine here to-day, and ever so many people 

besides, to meet these R 's. Doubtless we shall be 'borne 

through with an honourable throughbearing;' 3 but quietness is 
best. 

And now I must go and walk, while the sun shines. Our 
weather here is very showery and cold. I heard a dialogue the 
other morning betwixt Mr. Paulet and his factotum, which amused 
me much. The factotum was mowing the lawn. Mr. Paulet 
threw up the breakfast-room window, aud called to him: ' Knolles! 
how looks my wheat?' 'Very distressed indeed, sir!' 'Are we 
much fallen down?' 'No, sir, but we are black, very black.' 'All 
this rain, I should have thought, would have made us fall down?' 
' Where the crops are heavy they are a good deal laid, sir, but it 
would take a vast of rain to lay us! ' ' Oh, then, Knolles, it is because 
we are not powerful enough that we are not fallen down?' ' Sir?' 
' It is because we are not rich enough ? ' ' Beg pardon, sir, but I don't 
quite understand?' Mr. Paulet shut the window and returned to 
his breakfast. God keep you, dear. 

Your own 

J. C. 
LETTER 73. 

To T. Carlyle, Chelsea. 

Aug. 21, 1845. 
On our return to the railway, I had got out of the carriage, and 
was walking backwards and forwards when two gentlemen passed, 
one of whom I felt to know quite well, and after a little considera- 
tion I decided it was Mr. Storey, of Roseneath. Back I ran and 
laid my hand on his arm. 'See,' I said, ' how much better my 
memory is than yours!' 'I know your face quite well,' said he, 
'but for my life I cannot tell who you are.' ' Why, I am Jeannie 
Welsh, to be sure.' If you had only seen the man ! His trans- 

Eorts were ' rather exquisite.' I do not remember to have seen any- 
ody so outrageously glad to see me in all my life before. It 
was only after he had played all manner of antics that I recol- 
lected he had once been in love with me. He was still with me 
when Mrs. Paulet and Geraldine made their appearance, and they 
both perceived in the first instance that the gentleman I introduced 
to them had once been my lover; two women alike ' gleg.' In con- 
sideration of which good taste on his part, Mrs. Paulet on the spot 
invited him to go home with us to dinner; but that he could not 
do, was just about starting for London, where'he had meant to 
geek me out. It did me great good to see him, especially as he 
looked so glad, not for his own sake particularly, but as an authen- 
tic piece of old times. 

We had not been at home three minutes when J. M arrived 

to early dinner by appointment. I told him to-day quite frankly 
that he had better cut Unitarianism and come over to us. He 
asked me who I meant by ' us,' and I said Carlyle. He sighed, 
and shook his head, and said something about a man being bound 
to remain in the sphere appointed to him till he was fairly drawn 
out of it by his conscience. 

1 Dull book (quasi-atheistic), much talked of then. 

a Jeffrey? 'Pooh! clever enough, but not a domineering genius! ' (Poor 
Gray, of the High School, Edinburgh, thirty years before.) 
9 Burgher minister's thanksgiving on a Sacramental occasion. 



47 



LETTER 74. 



Carlyle was himself coming North; his wife to return to London. 
She had written him an angry letter about his changes of plan, 
which had disturbed her own arrangements. — J. A. F. 

To T. Carlyle, Chelsea. 

Aug. 29. 
Dearest, — To day I am restored to my normal state of amiability 
through the unassisted efforts of nature. I am sorry now I did 
not repress my little movement of impatience yesterday; a lover 
would have found it charming, perhaps more flattering than whole 
pages of ' wits ' and dokezze ; but husbands are so obtuse. They do 
not understand one's movements of impatience; want always 'to 
be treated with the respect due to genius; ' exact common sense of 
their poor wives rather than ' the finer sensibilities of the heart;' 
and so the marriage state ' — ' by working late and early, has come 
to what ye see ' — if not precisely to immortal smash as yet, at least 
to within a hair'sbreadth of it. But the matrimonial question may 
lie over till I write my book on the Rights of Women aud make an 
Egyptian happy. 

LETTER 75. 
To Charles Gavan Duffy, Esq., Dublin 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Sept. 14, 1845. 

My dear Sir,— Thank you emphatically for the beautiful little 
volume you have sent me, 'all to myself (as the children say). Be- 
sides the prospective pleasure of reading it, it is no small immedi- 
ate pleasure to me as a token of your remembrance; for when one 
has ' sworn an everlasting friendship ' at first sight, one desires, 
very naturally, that it should not have been on your Irish principle, 
' with the reciprocity all on one side.' 

The book only reached me, or rather I only reached it, last night, 
on my return home after an absence of two months, in search of — 
what shall I say? — a religion? Sure enough, if I were a good Cath- 
olic, or good Protestant, or good anything, I should not be visited 
with those nervous illnesses, which send me from time to time out 
into space to get myself rehabilitated, after a sort, ' by change of 
air.' 

When are you purposing, through the strength of Heaven, to 
break into open rebellion? I have sometimes thought that in acivil 
war I should possibly find my mission ' — moil But in these mere- 
ly talking times, a poor woman knows not how to turn herself; es- 
pecially if, like myself, she 'have a devil' always calling to her, 
'March! march I' and bursting into infernal laughter when re- 
quested to be so good as specify whither. 

If you have not set a time for taking up arms, when at least are 
you coming again to ' eat terms ' (whatever that may mean)? I feel 
what my husband would call 'a real, genuine, healthy desire ' to 
pour out more tea for you. 

My said husband has finished his ' Cromwell ' two weeks ago, 
then joined me at a place near Liverpool, where he remained a 
week in a highly reactionary state; and then he went North, and I 
South, to meet again when he has had enough of peat-bog and his 
platonically beloved 'silence' — perhaps in three weeks or a month 
hence. Meanwhile I intend a great household earthquake, through 
the help of chimney-sweeps, carpet-beaters, and other like products 
of the fall of o,ur first parents. And so you have our history up to 
the present moment. 

Success to all your wishes, except for the destruction of us Saxons, 
and believe me 

Always very cordially yours, 

Jake W. Cablyle. 

LETTER 76. 

About the end of August I did come to Seaforth ; wearisome 

journey; bulky dull man, Sir W. B , as I found, aud some Irish 

admirers talking dull antiquarian pedantries and platitudes all day; 
I as third party silent, till at length, near sunset, bursting out upon 
them and their Nennius, to their terror and astonishment and al- 
most to my own. Beautiful reception by Mrs. Paulet and her 
waiting for me at the station. Alas! alas! how unspeakable nowl 
— T. C. 

From Liverpool Carlyle went on by sea to Annan, leaving Mrs. 
Carlyle to go home to Chelsea. — J. A. F. 

To T. Carlyle, Esq., Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea: Monday, Sept. 15, 1845. 
I was sure you would have a wretched voyage; the very smell of 
that boat made me sick for all the rest of the evening. We 'did 
intend ' to have waived a handkerchief to you in passing, from the 
roof of the house; but the fog was too thick 'for anything.' 

Great efforts were made to keep me longer, but it is my principle 
always to go away before having exhausted the desire to keep me; 

1 By working late and early 
We're come to what ye see. 
Although we made our bridal bed 
On clean pease si rue. 



48 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



besides that, I piquemyself on being a woman of my word, and so 
me void in Cheyne Row once more. 

The journey back was a considerable of a bore; the train I came 
by starting at eleven, and, supposed by Mr. Paulet to answer to 
that which leaves here at ten, did not land me at Euston Station 
till half after nine! And all that, while, except a glass of porter and 
* sandwich, 'the chief characteristic of which was its tenuity,' 1 1 
had no support to nature, for I saw no sense in dining at Birming- 
ham when I expected to be in London at six. John ! had sent a 
note the day before, proposing, as he proposed the senna for Mary's 
children, that I should appoint him to meet me, ' or perhaps I had 
better not.' Not having got the letter before setting out, I had, of 
Course, no option; 'which was probably just as well.' Arriving 
here a quarter after ten, I found poor little Helen half distracted at 
my lateness; 'if it had been the master, she would never have 
minded, but me, that was always to a moment!' And so she had 
been taking on at a great rate; and finally, just a few minutes be- 
fore I arrived, got John despatched to look for me (!) at the station, 
in case, as he fancied, I had preferred coming by the express train; 
and, through these good intentions, 'highly unfortunate,' 3 I was 
kept up till half after one ; John not coming back till half after twelve, 
and I too polite to go to bed without awaiting his coming. Moreover, 
tin 1 carriage I came in had pitched like a ship in a storm; so that I 
was shaken into an absolute fever; ' the flames of fever had seized 
on me;' and what with all this fatigue, and the excitement of feel- 
ing myself at home, I could not sleep ' the least in the world,' and 
have not recovered myself to this hour. All is quiet about me as 
quiet can be, even to John's boots; but what signifies that, if one 
have, like Anne Cook's soldier, ' palpitation.' 

I have found everything here as well or better than could have 
been expected; the leech alive and ' so happy! ' Helen radiant with 
virtue's own reward; the economical department in a very back- 
ward state, but not confused, for it is clear as day that not a single 
bill has been paid since I left. Helen seems to have had four 
pounds ten for the incidental expenses, which I shall inclose her 
account of, to amuse Jamie; and there is a national debt to the 
butcher, baker, and milkman, amounting to about five pounds. 
So that the housekeeping, during my absence, has been carried on 
at some six or seven shillings a week less than if I had been at 
home, which is all as it should be, for I defy three people to live as 
we do on less than thirty shillings a week. I do think the little 
creature is very careful; as for honest, that I have been sure about 
long ago. 

LETTER 77. 
To T. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea: Thursday, Sept. 18, 1845. 
My Dear, — I have got quite over the fatigues of my journey, 
which had been most provokingly aggravated for me by a circum- 
stance 'which it may be interesting not to state;' the last two 
nights I have slept quite as well as I was doing at Seaforth. The 
retirement of Cheyne Row is as deep at present as anyone not ab- 
solutely a Timon of Athens could desire. ' There is, in the first 
place' (as Mr. Paulet would say), the physical impossibility (hardly 
anybody being left in town), and then the weather has been so 
tempestuous that nobody in his senses (except Mazziui, who never 
reflects whether it be raining or no) would come out to make 
Visits. He (Mazzini) came the day before yesterday, immediately 
on receiving notification of my adveut. and his doe skin boots 
were oozing out water in a manner frightful to behold. He looked 
much as I left him, and appeared to have made no progress of a 
practical sort. He told me nothing worth recording, except that 
he had received the other day a declaration of love. And this he 
told me with the. same calmu, and historical precision with which 
you might have said you had received an invitation to take the 
tihair at a Mechanics'" Institute dinner. Of course I asked ' the 
particulars.' 'Why not?' and I got them fully, at the same time 
■with brevity, and without a smile. Since the assassination affair. 4 
he had received many invitations to the house of a Jew merchant 
of Italian extraction, where there are several daughters — ' what, 
shall I say? — horribly ugly: that is, repugnant for me entirely.' 
One of them is 'nevertheless very strong in music,' and seeing that 
he admired her playing, she had ' in her head confounded the play- 
ing with the player.' The last of the only two times he had availed 
himself of their attentions, as they sat at supper with Browning 
and spine others, ' the youngest of the horrible family' proposed to 
him, in sotto voce, that they two should drink ' a goblet of wine ' to- 
gether, each to the person that each loved most in the world. ' I 
find your toast unegoist,' said he, 'and I accept it with pleasure.' 
'But.' said she, 'when we have drunk, we will then tell each other 
to whom? ' 'Excuse me,' said he, 'we will, if you please, drink 
without conditions.' Whereupon they drank; ' and then this girl 
— what shall I say? bold, upon my honour — proposed to tell me to 
whom she had drunk, and trust to my telling her after. "As you 
like." "Well, then, it was to you!" "Really?" said I, surprised, 
I must confess. "Yes," said she, pointing aloft; "true as God 

1 Mill's account of some celebrated creature's ' literature.' 

2 John Carlyle, then staying in Cheyne Row. 3 Phrase of John's. 

4 Trial (at Paris) of some calumnious fellow, who had accused him of being 
privv to, &c. &c. 



exists." "Well," said I, "I find it ; strange. " " Now, then," said 
she, " to whom did you drink?" ,v Ah!" said I, "that is another 
question;" and on this, that girl became ghastly pale, so that her 
sister called out. "Nina! what is the matter with you?" and now, 
thanks God, she has sailed to Aberdeen.' Did you ever hear any- 
thing so distracted? enough to make one ask if R has not some 

grounds for his extraordinary ideas of English women. 

The said R presented himself here, last night, in an interreg- 
num of rain, and found me in my dressing-gown (after the wetting), 
expecting no such Himmelssendung. I looked as .beautifully un- 
conscious as I could of all the amazing things I had been told, of 
him at Seaforth. He talked much of a 'dreadful illness;' but 
looked as plump as a pincushion, and had plenty of what Mr. 
Paulet calls ' colours in his face.' Hs seemed less distracted than 
usual, and professed to have discovered, for the first time, ' the 
infinite blessedness of work,' and also to be 'making money at a 
great rate — paying off his debt by five or six pounds a week.' I 
remarked that he must surely have had a prodigious amount of 
debt to begin with. 

Kind regards to your mother and the rest. 

J. C. 

LETTER 78. 

To T. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 

Tuesday, Sept. 23, 1845. 

' Nothink ' ' for you to-day in the shape of inclosure, unless I 
inclose a letter from Mrs. Paulet to myself, which you will find as 
'entertaining' to the full as any of mine. And nothink to be told 
either, except all about the play; 2 and upon my honour, I do not 
feel as if I had penny-a-liner genius enough, this cold morning, to 
make much entertainment out. of that. Enough to clasp one's hand, 
and exclaim, like Helen before the Virgin and Child, 'Oh, how 
expensive!' But 'how did the creatures get through it?' Too 
well; and not well enough! The public theatre, scenes painted by 
Stansfield, costumes 'rather exquisite,' together with the certain 
amount of proficiency in the amateurs, overlaid all idea of private 
theatricals; and, considering it as public theatricals, the acting was 
' most insipid,' not one performer among them that could be called 
good, and none that, could be called absolutely bad. Douglas Jer- 
rold seemed to me the best, the oddity of his appearance greatly 
helping him; he played Stephen the Cull. Porster as Kitely and 
Dickens as Captain Bobadil were much on a par; but Forster 
preserved his identity, even through his loftiest flights of Ma- 
creadyism; while poor little Dickens, all painted in black and 
red, and affecting the voice of a man of six feet, would have 
been unrecognisable for the mother that bore him! On the 
whole, to get. up the smallest interest in the thing, one needed to 
be always reminding oneself: 'all these actors were once men!' 3 
and will be men again to-morrow morning. The greatest wonder 
for me was iiow they had contrived to get together some six or 
seven hundred ladies and gentlemen (judging from the clothes) at 
this season of the year; and all utterly unknown to me, except 
some half-dozen. 

So long as I kept my seat in the dress circle I recognised only 
Mrs. Macready (in one of the four private boxes), and in my nearer 
neighbourhood Sir Alexander and Lady Gordon. But in the in- 
terval betwixt the play and the farce I took a notion to make my 
way to Mrs. Macready. John, of course, declared the thing ' clearly 
impossible, no use trying it;' but a servant of the theatre, overhear- 
ing our debate, politely offered to escort me where I wished ; and 
then John, having no longer any difficulties to surmount, followed, 
to have his share in what advantages might accrue from the 
change. Passing through a long dim passage, I came on a tall 
man leant to the wall, with his head touching the ceiling like a 
caryatid, to all appearance asleep, or resolutely trying it under 
most unfavourable circumstances. ' Alfred Tennyson ! ' I exclaimed 
in joyful surprise. ' Well ! ' said he, taking the hand I held out to 
him, and forgetting to let it go again. ' I did not know you were 
in town,' said I. "I should like to know who you are,' said he; 'I 
know that I know you, but I cannot tell your name.' And I had 
actually to name myself to him. Then he woke up in good earnest, 
and said he had been meaning to come to Chelsea. ' But Carlyle is 
in Scotland,' I told him with due humility. 'So I heard from 
Spedding already, but I asked Spedding, would he go with me to 
see Mrs. Carlyle? and he said he would.' I told him if he really 
meant to come, he had better not wait for backing, under the pres- 
ent circumstances; and then pursued my way to the Macreadys' 
box: where I was received by William (whom I had not divined) 
with a ' Gracious heavens! ' and spontaneous dramatic start, which 
made me all but answer, ' Gracious heavens! ' and start dramatically 
in my turn. And then I was kissed all round by his women; and 

poor Nell Gwyn, Mrs. M— — G , seemed almost pushed by the 

general enthusiasm on the distracted idea of kissing me also! They 
would not let me return to my stupid place, but put in a third chair 
for me in front of their box; 'and the latter end of that woman 

1 Dumfries postmaster of old: ' Nothink for Craigenputtock to-day, me'm ! ' 

2 Private theatricals, got up by Dickens and Forster for some benevolent 
purpose. — J. A. F. 

1 Speech of a very young Wedgwood at a Woolwich review: ' Ah, papa, all 
these soldiers were "once men ! ' 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



49 



was better than the beginning.^' Macready vfas in perfect ecstasies 
over the ' Life of Schiller,' spoke of it with tears in his eyes. As 
"a sign of the times,' I may mention that in the box opposite sat 
the Duke of Devonshire, with Payne Collier! Next to us were 
D'Orsay and ' Mils \g*. ' 

Between eleven and twelve it was all over — and the practical 
result? Eight-and sixpence for a fly, and a headache for twenty- 
four hours! I went to bed as wearied as a little woman could be, 
and dreamt that I was plunging through a quagmire seeking some 
herbs which were to save the life of Mrs. Maurice; and that Maurice 
was waiting at home for them in an agony of impatience, while I 
could not get out of the mud-water! 

Craik arrived next evening (Sunday), to make his compliments. 
Helen had gone to visit numbers. 1 John was smoking in the 
kitchen. I was lying on the sofa, headachey, leaving Craik to put 
himself to the chief expenditure of wind, when a cab drove up. 
Mr. Strachey? No. Alfred Tennyson alone! Actually, by a su- 
perhuman e'ffort of volition he had put himself into a cab, nay, 
brought himself away from a dinner party, and was there to smoke 
and talk with me! — by myself — me! But no such blessedness was 
in store for him. Craik prosed, and John babbled for his enter- 
tainment; and I, whom he had come to see, got scarcely any speech 
with him. The exertion, however, of having to provide him with 
tea, through my own unassisted ingenuity (Helen being gone for 
the evening) drove away my headache; also perhaps a little femi- 
nine vanity at having inspired such a man with the energy to take 
a cab on his own responsibility, and to throw himself on providence 
for getting away again! He' stayed till eleven, Craik sitting him 

out, as he sat out Lady H , and would sit out the Virgin Mary 

should he find her here. 

What with these unfortunate mattresses (a work of necessity) 
and other processes almost equally indispensable, I have my hands 
full, and feel 'worried,' which is worse. I fancy my earthquake 
begins to ' come it rather strong ' for John's comfort and ease, but 
I cannot help that; if I do not get on with my work, such as it is, 
what am I here for? 

Yours, 1 

J. C. 
LETTER 79. 
To T. Carlyle, Esq., Scotsfoig. 

Chelsea: Thursday evening, Sept. 25 (?), 1845. 
Here is an inclosure that will 'do thee neither ill n'r gude! ' It 
lay along with two brochures, one blue, one pea-green — the thin- 
nest brochures in every sense that ever issued from ' the womb of 
uncreated night!' 'the insipid offspring' of that 'crack-brained en- 
thusiastic ' who calls herself Henri Pans; one entitled Grossmiitler- 
lein, in verse, the other — oh, Heavens! — La femme libre, et V eman- 
cipation de la femme: Bhapsodie a propos des Saint- Simoniens, in 
prose — dead prose. 

I have looked into it over my tea, and find that the only eman- 
cipation for femme lies in her having ' le saint courage de Tester 
merge!' Glad tidings of great joy for — Robertson! ' Ouerroyez 
done, si vou8 pouoez, contre les homines!' exclaims the great female 
mind in an enthusiasm of platitude. ' Mais pour qu'ils daignent 
accepter votre defi, prouvez-leur, avant tout, que vous atez appris 
. . d vous passer d'eux ! ' 

I rose yesterday morning with an immense desire for 'change of 
air.' I had made the house into the liveliest representation of 
' Hell and Tommy ' 2 (I ' Tommy '), and it struck me that I should 
do well to escape from it for some hours; so John and I left to- 
gether. In the King's Road he picked up a cab to take back for 
his luggage, and I went on to Clarence Terrace, where I dined, 
and by six I was at home again to tea. Mrs. Macready had re- 
turned to Eastbourne, having only come up for the day to attend 
the play. That I was prepared for, as she had invited me to go 
along with her, but I was not prepared to find poor Macready ill 
in bed, with two doctors attending him. He had caught a horrible 

cold that night, from seeing Mrs. M G to her carriage 

through the rain ' in thin shoes; ' had been obliged to break an en- 
gagement at Cambridge. Poor Letitia 3 was very concerned about 
him, but would still not let me go without some dinner. To-day 
she writes to me that he is better. There seemed a good deal of 
jealousy in Macreadydom on the subject of the amateur actors. A 
'tremendous puff of the thing' had appeared in the Times — 'more 
kind really than ever the Times showed itself towards William!' 4 
John, when he came at night to pay ' his compliments of digestion,' 
suggested, with his usual originality, ' it was probably that (the 
puff) which had made Macready so ill just now!' Porster, it 
seems, bears away the palm; but they have all had their share of 
praise, ' and are in such a state of excitement, poor things, as 
never was seen! ' ' It will not stop here,' Miss Macready thinks. 

To-day I have not been out at all. I rose at seven, to receive — a 
sweep 1 And have been helping Helen to scrub in the library till 

1 ' No 5,' or the like, denoting maid-servant there. 

3 Buller's definition to me of a Martin picture (engraving rather) on Mac- 
ready's staircase one gala night. Picture mad— mad as Bedlam, all, and with 
one ' small figure ' (' Tommy ') notably prominent. 

a His sister, a very amiable gentlewoman. 

* ' William ' was the good Mrs. M.'s constant designation for her husband. 



now — seven in the evening. John ' came rushing in soon after 
nine this morning; he had left a breast-pin in the glass-drawer, and 
'supposed it would not be lost yet!' Then having found it, he 
brought it to me in the library, where I was mounted on the steps, 
covered with dust, to ask, whether I thought ' the diamonds real;' 
and what I thought 'such a thing would cost.' It was the pin he 
got years ago in Italy. I told him I would not take upon me 
to value it, but I could learn its value for him. ' From whom? ' 
' From Collier the jeweller.' ' Where does he live?' (with immense 
eagerness.) ' At the top of Sloane Street,' ' But wouldn't he tell 
me, — if 1 asked hini? me, myself? ' 'I dare say he would,' said I 
soothingly, for he seemed to be going rapidly out of his wits, with 
all-absorbing desire to know the value of that pin! If I had not 
seen him the night before playing with his purse and some sover- 
eigns, I might have thought he was on the point of carrying it to a 
pawnshop to get himself a morsel of victuals! But when, giving 
up the diamonds as glass, he passed to the individual value of the 
turquoise in the middle, flesh and blood could stand it no longer, 
and I returned to my dusting in silence; whereupon he looked at 
his watch, and found he ' was obliged to go off tc the British Mu- 
seum.' What in all the world will become of him? He seems to 
be more than ever without ' fixed point,' without will, without so 
much as a good wish! unless it be' to enjoy a tolerable share of ma- 
terial comfort, without ' Amt,' and as much as possible without 
' Geld.' However, now that he has ' concluded with his landlady,' 
it is no business of mine how he flounders on, ' bating no jot of 
heart and hope,' as he says. My own life is rather of the flounder- 
ing sort, only I have the grace to have ' abated heart and hope' in 
it to such an extent as to think sometimes that, ' if I were dead, 
and a stone at my head,' perhaps it would be be ter! ' a 

Not a soul has been here since Alfred Tennyson — except the 
'dark-fated ' Krasinski, 3 who did not get in. I know his rap, and 
signified to Helen to say ' I was sick — or dead' — what she liked! 
So she told him, 'the mistress was bad with her head to-night,' 
which, if not precisely the naked truth, was a Gambardella 'aspi- 
ration ' towards it. But besides Miss Macready yesterday I saw 
Helps, who seems to me 'dwindling away into an unintelligible 
whinner.' I met him in the King's Road, just as John called his 
cab, and he walked back part of the way with me, decidedly too 
solemn for his size! 

I get no letters in these days except from you. Geraldine has 
even fallen dumb; still out of sorts I fancy, or absorbed in her 
'one-eyed Egyptian;' perhaps scheming a new 'work!' I care 
very little which. Kind regards wherever they are due. 

J . o. 

LETTER 80. 
To T. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 
Wednesday, Oct. 1845 [some evening, about post-time]. 

Well! now I am subsided again; set in for a quiet evening, at 
leisure to write, and with plenty to write about. I know not how 
it is; I seem to myself to be leading a most solitary, and virtuous, 
and eventless life here, at this dead season of the year; and yet 
when I sit down to write, I have so many things to tell always that 
I am puzzled where to begin. Decidedly, I was meant to have 
been a subaltern of the Daily Press — not ' a penny-lady. ' 4 but a 
penny-a-liner; for it is not only a faculty with me, but a necessity 
of my nature to make a great deal out of nothing. 

To begin with something I have been treasuring up for a week 
(for I would not holloa till we were out of the wood) : I have put 
down the dog /' ' The dog! wasn't he put down at Christmas, with 
a hare? ' It seemed so; and ' we wished we might get it! ' But on 
my return I found him in the old place, at the back of the wall, 
barking 'like — like — anything!' 'Helen!' I said, with the calm- 
ness of a great despair, ' is not that the same dog? ' ' 'Deed is 
it!' said she, 'and the whole two months you have been away, its 
tongue has never lain! it has driven even me almost distracted! ' I 
said no more, but I had my own thoughts on the subject. Poison? 
a pistol bullet? the Metropolitan Police? Some way or other that 
dog — or I — must terminate! Meanwhile I went on cleaning with 
what heart I could. 'My Dear! Will you hasten to the catastro- 
phe?' I am hastening, slowly— festina lente. Bless your heart! 

* tltr* *•£»'*: ii/Atlii n n- nncliinrr ' 'tlio rnu'ine 8 orp Q in tnf lfi~ft T/"IT* t.itlQ 



there's nothing pushing 



' the rowins 6 are a' in the loft ' for this 



1 John's careless, helter-skelter ways had been notable since his boyhood, 
and which, taking his ease among us. were frequently an object of satire to 
her as to the rest of us. The good, affectionate, honest, and manly character 
and fine talents that lay deeper she also knew, as we all of us did, though 
with less of vocal recognition. 

a Forlorn old pauper, entering a school-room (to dame and little children): 
' I'm a poor helpless cratur; 
If I was dead, and a stone at my head, 
I think it would be bey-tur [better] 1 ' 

3 Amiable, mild gentleman, Polish exile; utterly poor; died in Edinburgh 
ten years afterwards. 

* In Scotland the ' Penny Ladies ' (extraneously so-called) were busy, 
* benevolent ' persons; subscribers of a penny a week for educating, &c. &c, 
not with much success. 

5 Oh, my heroine ! Endless were her feats in regard to all this, and her 
gentle talent too! I could not have lived here but for that, had there been 
nothing more. 

8 Saying of my indolent sister-in-law, brother Alick's wife, on one occa- 
sion. ' Rowins ' are wool completely carded, ready for the wheel when it 
comes down from ' the loft.' 



50 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



night! Well! it was the evening after John's departure. I had 
been too busy all day to listen; the candles were lit, and I had set 
myself with my feet on the fender to enjoy the happiness of be- 
ing let alone, and to bid myself 'consider.' 'Bow-wow-wow,' 

roared the dog, 'and dashed 'the cup of fame from my brow!' 
'Bow-wow-wow ' again, and again, till the whole universe seemed 
turned into one great dog-kennel! I bid my face in my hands and 
groaned inwardly. ' Oh, destiny accursed!* what use of scrubbing 
and sorting? All this availeth me nothing, so long as the dog sit- 
teth at, the washerman's gate'' 1 could have burst into tears, but I 
did not! 'I was a republican — before the Revolution; and I 
never wanted energy! ' I ran for ink and paper, and wrote; — 

' Dear Gambardella, — You once offered to shoot some cocks for 
me; that service I was enabled to dispense with; but now I accept 

your devotion. Come, if you value my sanity, and .' But 

here ' a sudden thought struck me.' He could not take aim at the 
dog without scalingthe high wall, and in so doing he would eer- 
taiuly be seized by the police; so 1 threw away that first sibylline 
leaf, and wrote another — to the washerman! Once more I offered 
him 'any price for that horrible dog — to hang it,' offered 'to settle 
a yearly income on it if it would hold its accursed tongue.' I im- 
plored, threatened, imprecated, and ended by proposing that, in 
case he could not take an immediate final resolution, he should in 
the interim ' make ' the dog dead-drunk with a bottle of whiskey, 
which I sent for the purpose! ' Helen was sent off with the note 
and the whiskey; and I sal, all concentrated, awaiting her return, 
as if the fate of "nations had depended on my diplomacy; and so it 
did, to a certain extent! Would not the inspirations of ' the first 
man in Europe' be modified, 2 for the next six months at least, by 
the fact, who should come off victorious, I or the dog? Ah! it is 
curious to think how first men in Europe, and first women too, 
are acted upon by the inferior animals! 

Helen came, but even before that had ' the raven down of night ' 
smoothed itself in heavenly silence! God grant this were not mere 
accident; oh, no! verily it was not accident. The washerman's 
two daughters had seized upon and read the note; and what was 
death to me had been such rare amusement to them that they ' fell 
into fits of laughter' in the first place; and, in the second place, 
ran down and untied the dog, and solemnly pledged themselves 
that it should 'never trouble me more!' At Christmas they had 
sent it into the country for three months 'to learn lobe quiet,' 
aud then chained it in the old place; now they would take some 
final measure. Next morning came a note from the washerman 
himself, written on glazed paper, with a crow-quill, apologizing, 
promising; he could not put it away entirely; as it was 'a great 
protection' to him, aud ' belonged to a relation' (who shall say 
where sentiment may not exist!), but he ' had untied it, and would 
take care it gave me no further trouble,' aud be 'returned his 
grateful thanks for what 'as been sent. ' It is a week ago; and one 
may now rest satisfied that the tying up caused the whole nui- 
sance. The dog is to he seen going about there all day in the 
yard, like any other Christian dog, ' carrying out' your principle 
of silence, not merely ' platonically, but practically. Since that 
night, as Helen remarks. ' it has not said one word!' So, 'thanks 
God,' you still have quietude to return to! 3 

I took tea with Sterling on Monday night; walked there, and 
he sent the carriage home with me. It is very difficult to know 
how to do with him. He does not seem to me essentially mad; 
but rather mid with the apprehension of madness; a state of mind 
lean perfectly understaud — moi. He forgets sometimes Anthony's 
name, for example, or mine; or how many children he has; aud 
then he gets iuto a rage, that he cannot recollect; and then he 
stamps about, and rings the bell, and brings everybody in the house 
to ' help him to remember;' aud when all will not do, he exclaims: 
'I am going mad, by God!' and then he is mad, as mad as a 
March hare. I can do next to nothing for him, beyond cheering 
him up a little, for the monieut. Yesterday, again, I went a little 
drive with him; of course, not without Saunders as well as the 
coachmau. He told me that when he heard I had written about 
him, he 'cried for three days.' Anthony's desertion seems the 
central point, around which all his hypochondriacal ideas congre- 
gate. Anthony has never written him the scrape of a pen, since 
he left him insensible at Manchester; nor even written about him, 
so far as himself or bis manservant knows. 

Whom else have I seen? Nobody else, I think, except Maz- 
ziui, whom I was beginning to fancy the Jewess must have made 
an enlevement of; and enleve he had been, sure enough, but not by 
the Jewess— by himself, and only the length of Oxford; or rather 
he meant to go only the length of Oxford; but, with his usual 
practicality, let himself be carried sixty miles further, to a place 
he called Swinlon. 4 Then, that the journey back might have also 
its share of misadventure, he was not in time to avail lumself of 
the place he had taken ' in the second class;' but had to jump up, 
f quite promiscuously,' beside 'the conductor, 1 where he had 'all 
the winds of Heaven blowing on him, and through him;' the re- 
sult a 'dreadful cold.' Dreadful, it must have been when it con- 



1 Mark, mark! 

'-' Quiz, mainly this, and glad mockery of some who deserved it. 
3 Weil do I remember that dog, behind the wall, on the other side of the 
Street. Never heard more. 4 Swindon. 



fined him to the house. Meanwhile he had had — two other declar- 
ations of love! ! They begin to be as absurd as the midges in Mr. 
Fleming's ' right eye.' 'What! more of them?' 'Ah yes! unhap- 
pily! they begin to — what shall I say? — rain on me like »/hi. relies! ' 
( me was from a young lady in Genoa, who sent him a bracelet of 
her hair (the only feature he Iris Seen of her); and begged 'lobe 
united to him — in plotting!' 'That one was good, upon my 
honour.' 'And the other?' 'Ah! from a woman here, married, 
thanks God; though to a man fifty years more old — French, and sings 
— the other played, decidedly my love of music has consequences! ' 
' And how did she set about it? ' ' Franehemcnt ; through a mu- 
tual friend; and then she sent me an invitation to supper; aud I 
returned for answer that I was going to Oxford; where 1 still am, 
and will remain a long, long time!' Emancipation de lafemme! 
one would say, it inarches almost faster than intellect. And now, 
if there be not clatter enough for one night, I have a great many 
half-moous and stars to cut in paper before I go to bed. For what 
purpose? That is my secret. ' And you wish that you could tell! ' 

Good night. Schlaf icold. J. C. 

I told Scott, in a 'note, to despatch Mrs. Rich's letter immedi- 
ately. 

LETTER 81. 

To T. Carlyle, Seotsbrig. 

Chelsea: Tuesday, Oct. 7, 1845. 

'Ah!' my dear! Yes indeed! If I could 'quench the devil' 
also, you might turn your face homewards with a feeling of com- 
parative security. But Sybilline leaves, whisky, game even, all the 
means of seduction which I have at my poor command, cannot 
gain him. Still, as in the time of old Dr. Ritchie, 'he goeth about, 
seeking whom he may devour,' and does not, as Helen was remarking 
this morning the dog did. ever since it had been set at large, ' be- 
have just like any other rational being.' One must be content to 
'stave nim off,' then, better or worse. Against the devil my 
'notes' themselves are powerless. 1 But here, on the table before 
me at this moment, one would say, lay means enough to keep him 
at bay for a while: first, two series of discourses on, first, 'Chris- 
tian Humiliation '; second, 'The City of God,' by C. H. Terrot, 
D.D., Bishop of Edinburgh; and secondly, a pair of pistols with 
percussion-locks. 

Are not the Fates kind in sending me two such windfalls in one 
evening? When I have made myself sufficiently desperate by study 
of the one, I can blow my brains out with the other. Come what 
nitty, one has always one's ' City of God ' left and — one's pistols. 

Meanwhile, I am going to dine with . She met Dar- 
win here yesterday, and asked him to fetch me; and though Imade 
great eyes at him, he answered, ' With all the pleasure iu life 1 * 
And so, for want, of moral courage to say Ko on my own basis, I 
am in for a stupid evening and Italian cooker}'; but I shall take 
some sewiug with me, and stipulate to be brought away early. I 
have been till day giving the last finish to the china closet; aud am 
shocked, this moment, by the town clock striking four, before my 
letter is well begun; I will send it, nevertheless, lest you should 
' take a notion ' to be auxious. 

I am also under the disagreeable necessity of warning you that 
you must bring some money. ' The thirty pounds I left done al- 
ready?' No, not done absolutely, but near it; and yet my living 
has been as moderate as well could be. and my little improvements 
have all been made off the money that was to have been squan- 
dered in Wales. 1 wish you had had the paying out at the end of 
the quarter instead of the beginning; it is so provoking, when I 
wanted so much to have been praised for my economy, to have to 
say instead, you must bring more money. But just take the trou-' 
ble to see how it has gone, without any mention of victuals at all : — 

£ s. d. 

Your debt to clear off 4 18 6 

Water-rate 6 6 

Church-rate 11 3 

Rent 8 15 

Aldin's quarter's account . . . .580 

Taxes 3 2 2| 

5 To Helen of wages 10 



24 1 5* 



After so prosaic a page as that, what more were it possible to 
write, even if I had the time? Ach Ooii! Ever yours, 

Jane Carlyle. 



LETTER 82. 

To T. Carlyle, Scslsbrig. 

Sunday, Oct. 12, 1845. 
Considering that a letter of twelve pages will reach you in the 
course of nature to-morrow morning, another for Tuesday morn- 



' Against stupidity the gods themselves are powerless ' (Schiller). 
Willi the receipts all inclosed. Oh, my ' poverty ' I richer to me 



Indies! 



than tho 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



51 



ing seems to be about as superfluous as Mr. Kenny's second twin.' 
Nevertheless, to be punctual to orders, this little sheet comes ' hop- 
ping to find you in the same.' 

I have been from twelve to-day till now (six in the evening) with 
old Sterling. He came to ask me to drive, and dine with him after, 
which humble prayer I could Comply with in both its branches — the 
■day being Sunday, and n?tf g particular doing at home. In pass- 
ing along Brompton Road- i suddenly pulled the check string and 
saVd to me in a solemn vol e, ' Now, will you please to accompany 
me to the regions of the dead?' ' Certainly not,' said I, and called 
to the coachman, 'Li.eon!' ' He is rapidly improving in his physi- 
cal part; but the head is confused as much as ever. He began cry- 
ing about his wife to-day; and, after declaring that ' she had reason 
to°be satisfied with his grief for her loss,' finished off with 'and 
now I say it really and religiously, I have just one hope left, and 
that is — to be left a widower as soon as possible.' 

On my return, I found on the table the cards of Mrs. N and 

Mrs. A ■. ' How these two women do hate one another! ' a But 

they are now, it would seem, not ashamed to drive out together. 

I was rather sorry to have missed Mrs. N . Who should drop in 

on me yesterday at dinner, but little Bolte, looking fat and almost 
contented? She was passing through with one of her pupils, whom 
she had been living with six weeks at Scvenoaks, to be near a doctor 
'for diseases of the skin.' She had fallen in there with a fine lady 
who possessed Mr. Carlyle's works, and said she liked them in 
many respects, and always took his part in public; that there was 
one thing about him ' deeply to be deplored.' Bolte asked, ' What? ' 
'Why, you know, on certain subjects Mr. Carlyle thinks for him- 
self, and that is so very wrong.' 

LETTER 83. 
John Forster, Esq., 58 Lincoln's Inn Fields. 

Bay House: Sunday, Dee. 7, 1845. 

My dear Mr. Forster, — A woman is constantly getting warned 
against following ' the impulses of her heart! ' Why, I never 
could imagine! for all the grand blunders I am conscious of having 
committed in life have resulted from neglecting or gainsaying 
the impulses of my heart, to follow the insights of my understand- 
ing, or, still worse, of other understandings. And so Iarn now ar- 
rived at this with it, that I have flung my understanding to the dogs; 
and think, do, say, and feel just exactly as nature prompts me. 
Well, having just finished the reading of your article on ' Crom- 
well,' nature prompts me to take pen and paper, and tell you that 
I think it devilishly well done, and quite as meritorious as the book 
itself; only that there is not so much bulk of it! Now, do not fancy 
it is my wife-nature that is so excited. I am a bad wife in so far as 
regards care about what is said of my husband's books in news- 
papers or elsewhere. I am always so thankful to have them done, 
and out of the house, that the praise or blame they meet with after- 
wards is of the utmost insignificance to me. It is not, then, he- 
cause your article covers him with generous praise that I am so 
delighted with it; but because it is full of sense, and highmindedness 
of its own; and most eloquently written. As Mrs. Norton would 
say, ' I love you for writing it; ' only nobody will impute to me a 
fraudulent use of that word! 

My pen — all pens here — refuse to write intelligibly. We are to 
come home in a fortnight hence, and I hope to see you then. 

Ever yours affectionately, 

J. 0. 

Love to the Macreadys. 

LETTER 84. 
To Mrs. Russell, Thornhill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Dec. 30, 1845. 
Dearest Mrs. Russell, — We are just returned from our Hampshire 
visit; 3 and I can answer for one of us being so worn out with 
'strenuous idleness,' as I do not remember ever to have been before! 
Six weeks have I been doing absolutely nothing but playing at 
battledore and shuttlecock, chess, talking uousense, and getting rid 
of a certain fraction of this mortal life as cleverly and uselessly as 
possible; nothing could exceed the sumptuosity and elegance of the 
whole thing, nor its uselessness! Oh dear me! I wonder why so 
many people wish for high position and great wealth, when it is 
such an 'open secret' what all that amounts to in these days, 
merely to emancipating people from all the practical difficulties, 
which might teach them the facts of things, and sympathy with 
their fellow creatures. This Lady Harriet Baring, whom we have 
just been staying with, is the very cleverest woman, out of sight, 
that I ever saw in uiy life (and I have seen all our ' distinguished 



1 Kenny, the playwright, married to the widow of Holcroft (the nervous 
Irish gentleman, to black French giantess, afraid of nothing) had an impor- 
tant bequest depending ' on the birth of a child. 1 Twins duly came, where- 
upon anxious Kenny dropped off to Basil Montague to inquire: ' But will that 
do? Two instead of one? ' 

3 So had some spiteful fellow once whispered her, in some rout, on seeing 
them together. 

' After a long visit to Mr. and Lady Harriet Baring, at Bay House, Alver- 
stoke. 



authoresses'); moreover, she is full of energy and sincerity, and 
has, I am sure, an excellent heart; yet so perverted has she been 
by the training and life-long humouring incident to her high posi- 
tion that I question if in her whole life she has done as much for 
her fellow creatures as my mother in one year, or whether she will 
ever break through the cobwebs she is entangled in, so as to be any- 
thing oilier than the most amusing and most graceful woman of 
her time. The sight of such a woman should make one very con- 
tent with one's own trials even when they feel to be rather hard! 

To jump to the opposite ends of creation, how is old Mary? 
Let her have her usual tokens of remembrance from me, poor old 
soul! — and Margaret. Say kind words to them both from me; which, 
I know, is always a pleasant commission to one so kindly disposed 
as you are. 

I have never yet thanked you for your welcome letter; but not 
the less have I thanked you in my heart. I was just expecting my 
husband's return when it came; and was busy making all sorts of 
preparations for him; then, after he came, I was kept in a sort of 
worry till we got away to Bay House, and in the last six weeks I 
have never felt to have one minute's leisure, though doing nothing 
all the while. Now that I am home, I hope to settle down into a 
more peaceful and reasonable life. 

God bless you, dear Mrs. Russell, and your father and husband. 

Accept the little New Year's gift, I send you as a token of grate- 
ful affection, that will never be less. 

Yours, 

J. Carlyle. 



LETTER 85. 

Spring of 1846, she and a small pretty party were at. Addiscombe 
Farm for several weeks; I, busy with the 'Cromwell' second edi- 
tion, was obliged to keep working steadily at home; but duly, on 
the Saturday till Monday, went out. There could be no prettier 
parties, prettier place or welcome, had these been all the requisites, 
but in truth they were not. Idleness, it must be owned, did sadly 
prevail — sadly, and even tragically, as I sometimes thought, on 
considering our hostess and chief lady there, and her noble talents, 
natural tendencies and aspirations, 'buried under gold thrones,' as 
Richter says.— T. C. 

Mrs. Aitken, Dumfries. 

5 Cheyne Bow: Wednesday, April 1846. 

My dear Jane, — The spirit moves me to fire off at you a small 
charitable purchase which I have just made. In the way of sug- 
gestion, it may perhaps yield me virtue's own reward! 

I am just returned, two days ago, from an aristocratic visit of a 
month's duration, with the mind of me all churned into froth, out 
of which, alas, no butter is to be expected! Yes, ' gey idle o' wark ' 
have I been for the last month, ' clatching about the country on 
cuddy-asses ' ' {figuratively speaking). Seeing ' how they act ' in 
the upper places does not give me any discontent with the place I 
am born to, quite the contrary. I. for one solitary individual (as 
Carlyle says), could not be other than perfectly miserable in idle- 
ness, world without end; and for a grand lady, it seems somehow 
impossible, whatever may be her tafents and ' good intentions,' to 
be other than idle to death. Even children do not find them in 
occupation and duties. A beautiful Lady Anne, who was at Ad- 
discombe along with me for the last ten days, had been confined 
just a month before; and her new baby was left with an older one 
in the care of a doctor and nurses; the mother seeming to be as 
little aware as all the rest (myself excepted) that any mortal could 
find anything to object to in such free and easy holding of one's 
children. But, as your ancestor said long ago, ' they're troubled 
that hae the world, and troubled that want it.' On the whole, how- 
ever, the more rational sort of trouble, that which brings least re- 
morse along with it, seems to me to be the ' wanting it.' C. is gone 
to ride; a little ' ill-haired,' this morning. 

Ever your affectionate sister, 

Jane Carlyle. 



LETTER 86. 

After Alverstoke, February 1846, I had rallied to a second edition 
of Cromwell (first had been published in October preceding), en- 
terprise in which, many new letters having come in, there lay a 
great deal of drudgery, requiring one's most exquisite talent as of 
shoe cobbling, really, that kind of talent carried to a high pitch, 
with which I continued busy all summer and farther. She, in the 
meanwhile, had been persuaded into Lancashire again; not till late 
in August could I join her at Seaforth for a little while. Whence 
into Anuandale for another silent six weeks, grown all to grey haze 
now, except that I did get rid of my horse ' Bobus ' there on fair 
terms, and had no want of mournful reflections (sad as death at 
times or sadder) on my own and the world's confusion and per- 
versities, and the tragedies there bred for oneself and others. God's 
mercy, God's pardon, we all of us might pray for, if we could. — T. C. 

1 Ejaculation of my mother's after reading a long Roman letter from brother 
John. 



52 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



To Mrs. Russell, Thomhill. 

Seaforth House, Liverpool: July 2, 1846. 

Dearest Mrs. Russell, — Your note found me again at Seaforth, 
where I have beeu for the last week. The great heat of London in 
the beginning of June had made me quite ill again, and as my hus- 
band would not make up his mind yet where to go, or when, I 
made up my own mind one fine morning, and started off hither, 
which has become a sort of house of refuge for me of late years. 
My husband talked of following me in a week or two, and then 
taking me with him to Scotland; but whether I shall be able to 
bring my mind to that, when the time comes, Heaven knows. The 
idea of Scotland under the actual circumstances is so extremely 
desolate for me that I should need to get a little more strength here, 
both physical and moral, before it were possible for me to entertain 
it practically. I fancy it were easier for me to go to Haddington 
than to Dumfriesshire; I have not been there since it was all 
changed, and myself become a sort of stranger in it. A family of 
good women, 1 who were dearly attached to my mother, are very 
desirous that I should pay them a visit; and I have not yet said 
positively that I will not. We shall see. 

Meanwhile, Tuesday is my birthday, when I must not be forgot- 
ten by those who have been used to remember it. I send a little 
parcel for Margaret, 2 to your kind care; and will thank you to give 
Mary 3 five shillings for me, or rather lay it out for her on a pair of 
shoes, or tea, or what you think fittest. I will send a Post-Office 
order, in repayment, the first day I go to Liverpool 

I spent part of the day there yesterday, and saw my uncle, who 
was absent on my first visit. He looks pretty well, and is very 
patient under the feebleness of age. My cousins, Helen and Mary, 
were here on Wednesday, and promise to come and see me often, 
without taking it ill of me that I prefer staying here in this quiet, 
roomy, country house, to being cooped up in Maryland Street, 
which is worse for one's health than Cheyne Row. Margaret 4 goes 
to Scotland to Walter, on Wednesday. 

My kind regards to your husband and father. I could not help 
smiling when I thought of your father receiving his newspaper 6 all 
in mourning for — the pope! 

Affectionately yours ever, 

Jane Carltle. 



LETTER 87. 
To T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea, 

Seaforth: Tuesday, July 14, 1846. 

Oh ! my dear husband, fortune has played me such a cruel trick 
this day ! and I do not even feel any resentment against fortune, 
for the suffocating misery of the last two hours. I know always, 
when I seem to you most exacting, that whatever happens to me 
is nothing like so bad as I deserve. But you shall hear how it was. 

Not a line from you on my birthday, the postmistress averred! 
I did not burst out crying, did not faint— did not do anything 
absurd, so far as I know; but I walked back again, without speak- 
ing a word, and with such a tumult of wretchedness in my heart as 
you. who know me, can conceive. And then I shut myself in my 
own room to fancy everything that was most tormenting. Were 
you, finally, so out of patience with me that you had resolved to 
write to me no more at all ? Had you gone to Addiscombe, and 
found no leisure there to remember my existence? Were you taken 
ilL so ill that you could not write? 

That last idea made me mad to get off to the railway, and back 
to London. Oh, mercy! what a two hours I had of it! 6 

And just when I was at my wits' end, I heard Julia crying out 
through the house 'Mrs. Carlyle, Mrs. Carlyle! Are you there? 
Here is a letter for you.' 

And so there was after all! The postmistress had overlooked it, 
and had given it to Robert, when he went afterwards, not knowing 
that we had been. I wonder what love-letter was ever received 
with such thankfulness! Oh. my dear 1 I am not tit for living in 
the world with this organisation. I am as much broken to pieces 
by that little accident as if I had come through an attack of cholera 
or typhus fever. I cannot even steady my hand to write decently. 
But I felt an irresistible need of thanking you, by return of post. 
Yes. I have kissed the dear little card-case, and now I will lie down 
awhile, and try to get some sleep. At least, to quiet myself, I will 
try to believe — oh why cannot I believe it, once for all— that, with 
all my faults and follies. I am ' dearer to you than any earthly 
creature.' I will be better for Geraldine here, she is become very 
quiet and nice; and as affectionate for me as ever. 

Your own 

J. C. 

1 The Misses Donaldson. 

3 Margaret Hiddlestone, the excellent widow servant. 

8 Mary Mills, who used to depend on charitable Templand, weeding the gar- 
den, &c. To me who know the matter, what a piercing beauty in those rigor- 
ously punctual small gifts; sad as death, and grand, too, as death! 

* ' Maggie ' hodie. 

5 The (Irish-Catholic) Tablet, which came gratis to me (from Lucas, founder 
and editor, a great ' admirer,' &c), and was sent regularly till his death 

8 Oh, my darling little woman! 



Two Extracts. 

To T. Carlyle. 

Liverpool : July 1846. 
July 15. — Jeannie writes to me from Auehtertool that the old 
minister is suddenly dead, so Walter ' is now in possession nf the 
appointments of his office. There is something rather shocking in 
one person's death being necessarily a piece of good fortune "for 
another; but it is all one to the old man himself now, whether they 
make sad faces at his departure or gay ones. And who knows? 
'Perhaps somebody loved that pig,' s and will give him a genuine 
tear or two. ' Poor mortals after all! ' what a mighty problem we 
make about our bits of lives; and death as surely on the way to 
cut us out of ' all that ' at least, whatever may come after. Yes, 
nobody out of Bedlam, even educated in Edinburgh, can contrive 
to doubt of death. One may go a far way in scepticism ; may get to 
disbelieve in God and the devil, in virtue and in vice, in love, in one's 
own soul ; never to speak of time and space, progress of the species, 
rights of women, greatest happiness of the greatest number, 'isms,' 
world without end; everything, in short, that the human mind ever 
believed in, or ' believed that it believed in ; ' only not in death. The 
most outrageous sceptic — even I, after two nights without sleep— 
cannot go ahead against that fact — a rather cheering one on the 
whole — that, let one's earthly difficulties be what they may, death 
will make them all smooth sooner or later, and either one shall 
have a trial at existing again under new conditions, or sleep soundly 
through all eternity. " That last used to be a horrible thought for 
me, but it is not. so any longer. I am weary, wear) - to such a point 
of moral exhaustion, that any anchorage were welcome, even the 
stillest, coldest, where the wicked should cease from troubling, and 
the weary be at rest, understanding both by the wicked and the 
weary myself. 

Several letters lost, and four dismal weeks of my darling's history 
in the world left Unrecorded. Ill spirits, ill health. Oh what a 
world for her too noble being, and for some others not so noble! 
I had left perhaps a week before the date of this letter, sorrowfully 
enough, but not guessing at all how ill she was. She had gone to 
Geraldine's quiet place in Manchester, rather as in duty bound than 
with mudi hope of solacement or even of greater quietude there; 
both of which, however, she found, so beautiful was Geraldine's 
affectionate skill with her, delicacy, wise silent sympathy and un- 
wearied assiduity (coming by surprise too), for which she never 
forgot Geraldine. — T. C. 

Manchester: Aug. 83, 1846. 

Geraldine has kept to her purpose of not leaving me a single 
vacant minute; and her treatment, I believe, has been the most 
judicious that was possible. It has brought back something like 
colour into my face, and something like calm into my heart, but 
how long I shall be able to keep either the one or the other when 
left to my own management, God knows, or perhaps another than 
God knows, best. 

Nor is it to Geraldine alone that I feel grateful; no words cau 
express the kindness of her brother. To-night I shall be with all 
my family that remains, but that thought cannot keep the tears out 
of my eyes in quitting these strangers who have treated me like the 
dearest of sisters. 

Short while after this I at length roused myself from torpor at 
Scotsbrig, and made, still very slowly, for home. Slowly, and with 
wide circuit, by Dumfries, Craigenputtock (oh my emotions there 
with tenant McQueen in the room which had been our bedroom). 
After two hours at Craigenputtock with McQueen, who had now ' 
become a mighty cattle-dealer, famed at Norwich, much more over 
all these moor countries for his grandeur of procedure (and who in 
a year or two died tragically, poor man !), I returned to Dumfries, 
took coach next morning for Ayr, impressive interesting drive all 
the way, wandered lonesome, manifoldly imagining, all afternoon, 
over Ayr and environs (Arran from the sea sand, in the hazy east 
wind nightfall, grand and grim. Twa Brigs, &c). Ayr was hold- 
ing some grand markel ; streets and inn had been chokefull during 
the sunny hours; in twilight and by lamplight become permeable 
enough, had not one's heart been so heavy. I stept rzto a small sta- 
tioner's shop, and at his counter wrote a poor letter to my mother. 
Except two words there, and a twice two at my inn, no speech 
further in Ayr. After dark, rail to Ardrossan (bright moon on the 
sandy straggling scene there), step on board the steamer for Belfast, 
intending a little glimpse of Ireland before Liverpool, Duffy and 
other young Repealers waiting me there, all on the ship. At Bel- 
fast next morning, breakfast, stay few hours, (cold stony town) 
take coach for Drogheda where Duffy and Mitchell will await, a 
post-office letter will say in what particular house. Coach roof in 
the sunny day pleasant enough ; country rough and ill-husbandried, 
but all new; Portnadowu Bridge (of the great massacre of 1641); 
Duke of Manchester's house; a merry enough young Dublin gen- 
tleman sitting next me occasionally talking merry sense. Potatoes 
all evidently rotten ; every here and there air poisoned with their 

1 Mrs. Carlyle's uncle. 

2 Sentimental cockney (mythical) that, trotting past, saw a clean-washed 
pig with a ribbon round its neck, and exclaimed, 'Somebody,' &c— T. C. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



53 



fateful smell. At Drogheda, dismount. Postmaster has no letter 
for me; angry old fool reiterates 'None, I tell you!' and Duffy, 
who was there waiting and had a letter waiting, stayed in vain, and 
did not return till afternoon next day; would have had the Drog- 
heda official punished (or at least complained of), but I wouldn't. 
An angry old fool, misanthropic, not dishonest, pleaded I. Rolled 
into Duiiliu (lo Imperial Hotel) by railway. After sunset, wan- 
dered far and wide about the broad pavements, listening to the 
wild melodies and cries of Dublin (on a Saturday night), went tired 
to bed, and, in spite of riotous sounds audible, slept well enough. 

In Dublin or neighbourhood I continued till Thursday or Friday; 
saw various persons, places, and things, which had a kind of inter- 
est to me. One day saw Conciliation Hall, and the last glimpse of 
O'Connell, chief quack of the then world — first time I had ever 
heard the lying scoundrel speak — a most melancholy scene to me 
altogether. Conciliation Hall something like a decent Methodist 
chapel; but its audience very sparse, very bad, and blackguard- 
looking; brazen faces like tapsters, tavern keepers, miscellaneous 
hucksters and quarrelsome male or female nondescripts, the pre- 
vailing type; not one that you would have called a gentleman, much 
less a man of culture; and discontent visible among them. The 
speech — on potato rot (most serious of topics) — had not one word of 
sincerity, not to speak of wisdom in it. Every sentence seemed to 
you a lie, and even to know that it was a detected lie. I was stand- 
ing in the area in a small group of non-members and transitory 
people quite near this Demosthenes of blarney, when a low voice 
close at my ear whispered in high accent: ' Did you ever hear such 
damned nonsense in all your life? ' It was my Belfast Drogheda 
coach companion, and I thoroughly agreed with him. Beggarly 
O'Connell made out of Ireland straightway, and never returned — 
crept under the Pope's petticoat ' to 'die ' (and be ' saved ' from what 
he had merited) — the eminently despicable aud eminently poisonous 
professor of blarney that he was. 

I saw Carleton — Irish novelist (big vulgar kind of fellow, not 
without talent and plenty of humour); certain young lawyers who 
have since come to promotion, but were not of moment; certain 
young writers do. do. Dined at John Mitchell's with a select party 
one evening, and ate there the last truly good potato I have met 
with in the world. Mitchell's wife, especially his mother (Pres- 
byterian parson's widow of the best Scotch type), his frugally ele- 
gant small house and table, pleased me much, as did the man him- 
self, a fine elastic-spirited young fellow with superior natural talent, 
whom I grieved to see rushing on destruction, palpable by ' attack 
of windmills,' but on whom all my dissuasions were thrown away. 
Both Duffy and him I have always regarded as specimens of the 
best kind of Irish youth, seduced (like thousands of others in their 
early day) into courses that were at once mad and ridiculous, and 
which nearly ruined the life of both, by the Big Beggar-man, who 
had 15,000/. a year (and proh pudor! the favour of English minis- 
ters instead of the pillory from them) for professing blarney, with 
such and still worse results. One of my most impressive days was 
the Sunday (morrow of my arrival) out at Dundrum waiting for 
Duffy, who did arrive about night. Beautiful prospect; sea With 
shore and islets; beautiful leafy lanes; mile on mile in total silence, 
total solitude. I only met two persons all day : one promenading 
gently on horseback; the other on foot, from which latter I prac- 
tically learnt that the ' Hill of Howth ' was unknown by that name 
here, and known only as the ' Hill of Hoath.' My last clay there 
was also pretty; wide sweeping drive with Duffy and Mitchell. 
Dargle, stream* and banks, Powerscourt, gate and oaks, &c, alto- 
gether fine; finally to Bray and its fine hotel to dinner, till steamer 
time came, aud they hospitably put me on board. Adieu! adieu! 
ye well-wishing souls. 

Next morning between five and six I was safe seated on my lug- 
gage before the door of Maryland Street (Liverpool), smoking a 
cigar in placid silence till the silent home should awaken, which it 
somehow did unexpectedly before my cigar was done. — T. C. 



LETTER 88. 

This and the next four letters give clear account of a sordid form 
of servile chaos in this house, and how it was administered by one 
who had the best skill I ever saw in such matters. Helen Mitchell, 
an innocent-hearted, very ingenious, but practically altogether fool- 
ish creature, had, by matchless skill in guiding of her and thorough 
knowledge of her Scotch character and ways, been trained to great 
perfection of service, been even cured from a wild habit of occa- 
sional drinking, and tamed into living with us, and loyally and 
faithfully serving us for many years. She was one of the strangest 
creatures I ever saw ; had an intellectual insight almost as of genius, 
and a folly and simplicity as of infancy; her sayings and observa- 
tions, her occasional criticisms on men and things translate^ into 
the dialect of upstairs, were by far the most authentic table wit I 
have anywhere heard! This is literally true, though I cannot make 
it conceivable ; the ' beautifully prismatic ' medium that conveyed 
it to me, which was unique in my experience, being gone. 

The history of Helen's departure, and of her unspeakable suc- 
cessor's arrival are clearly given in these following letters, and to 
me at present in spite of their mean elements, have the essential 
aspect of a queenly tragedy, authentic of its kind!— T. C. 



To Mrs, Stirling, Hill Street, Edinburgh. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Saturday, Sept. 1846. 

My dear Susan, — Do you remember saying to me when you were 
last "here, ' should you ever have to part with Helen, and be in want 
of another Scotch servant, tell me, and perhaps I shall be able to- 
help you to one; for there are still good servants to be got in Dun- 
dee"? It is years since you said this; years since we have ex- 
changed words with one another; but I now claim your assistance,- 
with as full assurance as if you had offered it yesterday; for I 
judge of your friendship by my own; and as time and absence 
have made no change in my feelings towards you, I fancy that 
neither has any change been made in yours towards me; and that 
you are still as ready to take some trouble for me as ever you were. 
If likings depended on locality in this world, poor mortals would 
have a sad time of it; seeing how those who like one another are 
drifted asunder, aud kept apart; as much, often, as it they were 
dead for one another; but where a true regard has once existed, 1 
cannot believe that any ' force of circumstances ' ever destroys it. 
And so, as I have said, I calculate on your being still the same 
warmhearted friend I ever found you, when our stars brought us 
together — even though we do not write letters to state the fact. 

Alas! of late years my letter-writing propensities have been sorely 
kept down by the continual consciousness of being grown into a 
sort of bore; ever ailing, ever depressed in spirits — the conse- 
quence, I suppose, of this sort of nervous ailment. What have I 
to tell anyone that cares for me, which it were any satisfaction to 
hear? The only thing I would write to you, which were not better 
unwritten, would be just over and over again, 'My dear Susan, I 
often think of you, and have the same affection for you that ever I 
had;'— and that, I flatter myself, you will always take for granted. 

But, for the practical business that now puts me on writing to 
you : you are to know that my poor little Helen has not relapsed 
into drink again, nor otherwise forsaken the paths of virtue; on 
the contrary, she has been growing, like wine and a few other 
things, always the better by keeping. So that at no period of our 
relation could I have felt more regret at losing her. The only con- 
solation is, that she will find her advantage iu the change : at least 
one tries to hope so. A marriage, you think! No, something even 
more unthought of has turned up for the little woman. She is 
going to be made a sort of a lady of! at least, so the matter presents 
itself to her lively imagination! A brother in Dublin has been ris- 
ing into great prosperity as a manufacturer of coach-fringe; thanks 
to the immense consumption of that article on the railways! He is 
now, by his own showing, a regular gentleman — so far as money 
goes! — and has 'two hundred girls in his pay.' He looks to me a 
foolish, flustering sort of incredible creature; but Helen feels no 
doubt as to the solidity of his basis. Hitherto he has taken no 
charge of Helen beyond coming to see her for a quarter of an hour 
when his business called him to London. 

LETTER 89. 

Helen had usefully and affectionately stayed with us eight yeara 
or more. Latterly, a silly snob of a younger brother, setting up, 
or getting forward, in some small business at Dublin, came once or 
twice, after total neglect before, opened a 'career of ambition' to 
the poor creature, aud persuaded her over to Dublin to keep house 
for him. It was well foreseen what this was likely to end in; but 
there could be no gainsaying. Poor Helen went (aud took the 
consequence, as will be seen); bright breakfast-table report of her 
strange sayings and ways (gentle, genial lambency of grave humour 
and intelligence — wittiest of wit that I ever heard was poor in com- 
parison!) ceased altogether then; and to us, also, the consequences 
for the time were variously sad. 

To Mrs. Aitken, Dumfries. 

Chelsea: End of Dec. 1846. 
My dear Jane, — I am not up to much writing yet; my three 
weeks' confinement to bed, and the violent medicine that was given 
me to put down my cough, have reduced me to the consistency of 
a jelly. But I will not write a long letter, but tell you now in a 
short one how glad I was of the little token of your kind remem- 
brance, which reached me the other night just when I was trying 
to sit up for the first time. Your letter made me cry; which is al- 
ways a good sign of a letter, don't you think? But, my dear, what 
do you mean by 'forgiving' you? What unkind thing did you 
ever do to me? I have not the faintest recollection of your ever 
doing unkindly by me in your life ! At Craigenputtock we used to 
have little squabbles about the servants and 'all that sort of thing'; 
but in these it strikes me I was always quite as much an aggressor 
as a sufferer, and on the whole, considering the amount of human 
imperfection going, and the complexities we had to work in at 
Craigenputtock, I think we got through that business 'as well as 
could be expected'; and certainly you did not get through it worst. 
Believe me, my dear sister, I have none but kind feelings towards 
you and kind recollections of you. Although we are widely parted 
now, and although much has changed incredibly since those days 
at the Hill which you remind me of, the regard 1 conceived for you 
then has gone on the same, though so seldom giving any sign of 
itself. 



54 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



We are still in a fearful puddle here. Helen's loss has been a 
serious affair. The temporary servant we have drives Carlyle and 
my cousin to despair, and I am pretty near despair from seeing 
them so put about while myself cannot go to the rescue, as I could 
so well have done but for this dreadful cold. I have no decided 
prospect yet of anything better. I put an advertisement in the 
'Times' newspaper but the only applicant as yet resulting from it 
was not to be thought of. I will inclose you Dr. Christie's brief 
account of her. There was a Highland woman offered the other 
day, whom I mean to inquire further into, though she rather 
shocked me by having forgotten what part of the Highlands she 
came from! 1 will write when I am stronger and tell you what 
comes of us. It is a great worry my cousin being here when every- 
thing is so wretchedly uncomfortable, although I suppose there was 
absolute need of her while I was confined to bed. 

Ever your affectionate 

J. C. 

Kind regards to James. 

LETTER 90. 

This is the catastrophe or utter down-break of Pessima, whom I 
still remember as a handsome, cultivated-looking Edinburgh girl, 
speaking Scotch like an Edinburgh gentlewoman, and exhibiting a 
character and style of procedure detestable beyond any previous 
specimen I had ever known of. She had been carefully trained by 
pious Edinburgh ladies; was filled with the consciousness of free 
grace; and, I believe, would have got more real education, as I told 
her, if she had been left to puddle through the gutters with her 
neglected fellow brats, by whom she would have been trampled out 
of the world had she behaved no better than now. Indisputably 
the worst specimen of Scotch character I have ever seen produced. 
My brief request to her was to disappear straightway, and in no 
region of God's universe, if she could avoid it, ever to let me behold 
her again. The poor devil, I believe, died in a year or two, and did 
not come upon the streets as predicted of her. 

Betty, the old Haddington servant, who had been concerned in 
the sending or sanctioning of this wretched creature, was deeply 
grieved and disappointed. The charm for Betty had been the per- 
fect Free Kirk orthodoxy and free grace professions of this Pessima, 
who, I think, reported at home that she had been obliged to leave 
us, having actually noticed once or oftener that we ' received ' on 
Sabbath. 

The cousin mentioned here is good Helen Welsh, of Liverpool, 
Maggie's eldest sister, whose amiable behaviour and silent helpful- 
. ness in this sordid crisis I still well remember. The improvised 
old woman, I remember, got the name of slowcoach between us, 
and continued for perhaps three weeks or more. She was a very 
white aproned, cleanly old creature, and I once noticed her sitting 
at some meal in her kitchen, with a neatness of table-cloth and 
other apparatus, and a serene dignity of composure in her poor old 
self, that were fairly pathetic to me. For the rest, never did I see 
so sordid a domestic crisis appointed for such a mistress, in this 
world! But it hail its kind of compensation too; and is now more 
noble and queenlike to me than all the money in the bank could 
have made it. 

The little creature called Anne did prove a good cockney parallel 
of Scotch Helen Mitchell, and served us well (with only one fol- 
lower, our butcher's lad, who came silently, and sat two hours 
once a week): follower and she were then wedded, went to Jersey, 
where we heard of their doing well in the butcher's business; but, 
alas, before long, of poor Anne's falling ill and dying. 

Before Anne's (putting us, dottle Helen had finished her lady- 
hood at Dublin, quarrelled with her fool of a brother there, and 
retired to Kirkcaldy, signifying the warmest wish to return hither. 
She did return, poor wretch, but was at once discerned (not by me) 
to be internally in a state of chaos; and within three months, for 
open and incurable drunkenness, had to be dismissed. Endless 
pains were taken about her; new place provided (decent old widow 
in straitened circumstances, content to accept so much merit in a 
servant and tried to cure the drunkenness) But nothing whatever 
could avail; the wretched Helen went down and down in this Lon- 
don element, and at last was sent home to her kindred in Kirkcaldy 
to die. ' Poor bit dottle,' what a history and tragedy in small! — 
T. C. 

To Mrs. Stirling, Hill Street, Edinburgh. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Dec. 29, 1846. 

My dearest Susan, — I wonder if you are out of anxiety about 
your sister? 1 am almost afraid to begin telling you of my own 
troubles, without being first satisfied of that. But it seems un- 
kind, after all your exertions to provide me with a servant, not to 
tell you of the catastrophe of the one sent me by Betty! It is only 
now, for the first time, that I am in a condition to give you the 
disgusting history; fori was taken ill in the second week of her; 
have been three weeks confined to bed, and a week more to my 
bedroom fireside; and am just emerged into the library, between 
which and my bedroom I look forward with ' a certain resignation ' 
to passing all the rest of the winter. 

You would see by my last letter that I was dubious as to the re- 
sult of that Edinburgh damsel. I tried to hope the best and culti- 



vate patience and cheerfulness; but your notion that she had been 
too much petted for this situation gained on me every day. She 
showed no disposition to learn her work; in fact, she became every 
day more sulky and slovenly; and, on the first washing-day, she 
burst out on me with a sort of hysterical insolence; declared she 
'bad never been told by anybody she was to wash;' that 'no one 
woman living could do my work,' and when I told her the answer 
to that was, that it had been done by ' one woman ' for eleven 
years, without the slightest complaint, she said, almost screaming, 
• ( ih yes, there are women that like to make slaves of themselves, 
and her you had was of that sort, but I will never slave myself for 
anybody's pleasure.' I asked her if she would be so good as state 
calmly what she meant to do. To ' go, to be sure.' ' Did she pro- 
pose repaying me her expenses, then? ' 'No, she had no money.' 
I thought the only way to treat such a creature, who seemed to 
have no sense of obligation, or anything else but her ' own sweet 
will,' was to let her depart in peace, and remain a loser of only two 
guineas, and not of my temper as well. So I told her, well, she 
might go at the end of her month, only to make no noise, if pos- 
sible, for the remaining three weeks. But even this was too much 
to ask. In the second week of her, I was laid up in bed with one 
of my serious colds, caught by doing the most of her work my- 
self, and exposing myself after quite an unusual fashion; once 
there, I lay, with a doctor attending me daily; and dosing me 
with tartar- emetic and opium, till I had hardly any sense left, 
and was too weak to cough ; while Carlyle and my cousin 
had to shift for themselves and me too, with an occasional help- 
ing hand from our postman's wife. Isabella, meanwhile, cry- 
ing about her 'hands getting all spoilt with dirty work' ; and 
doing nothing she could hehp ; till on Saturday night, just a 
fortnight after she had come, she sent me word in my bed, 
that if I did not let her go next day (Sunday !) she ' would 
take fits, and be laid up in my house a whole year, as hap- 
pened to her once before in a place where the work was too 
hard.' Carlyle told her to go in the devil's name; and a little 
more of his mind he told her; which was a satisfaction for me 
to have said in his emphatic way, since I was unable to rebuke her 
myself! But you may fancy the mischief all this did to a poor 
woman taking tartar-emetic and opium every two hours! When 
my doctor came next day, he said it ' was well he had not been 
here at the time, as he would have certainly dashed her brains out! ' 
By that time, however, she was gone; actually rushed off after 
breakfast on Sunday! — (so much for 'free grace,' of which she pro- 
fessed to be full!) — smartly dressed, and very happy, they told me — 
off to the 'seven cousins'' with whom I had, more good-naturedly 
than wisely, permitted her, at her own request, to pass all the pre- 
vious Sunday; leaving me very ill in bed, and no servant in the 
house! The'day after, she brought an omnibus and a female friend 
to the door, in the finest spirits, to take away her box; and from 
that day to this I have heard no more of her! But if such a char- 
acter as she exhibited here does not lead her to the streets some 
day, I shall be greatly surprised. Of course her respectable appear- 
ance, backed out by the seven cousins, will have got her another 
place ere now; where, if men-servants be kept, she may exert her- 
self. My doctor said he could tell by her looks, the first day she 
opened the door to him, that she had then, or had quite lately had, 
the green sickness, and that I was well rid of her. 

And now I might write a few sheets more, of the old half-dead 
cook, whom a lady who was going to part with her at any rate, on 
account of her 'shocking bail temper,' obligingly made over to us 
as • a temporary,' at an hour's notice, Such as she is, she has been 
an improvement on Isabella, for she does her best. But oh, what a 
puddle it has been! and rushing down of an orderly house to chaos! 
Another fortnight of it would have sent my not too patient husband 
raving mad ! Since I got out of bed I have been seeing all sorts of 
horrid-looking females 'inquiring after the place;' and two days ago 
finally settled with one not horrid-looking, but a cheery little ' but- 
ton ' of a creature, with a sort of cockney resemblance to Helen ; she 
has been nearly three years in a similar situation close by, which 
she has only left in consequence of the mistress having died, and the 
master going into lodgings. He gave her an excellent character to 
my cousin; especially for quiet habits. ' She had only one lover 
who came to see her, and one female friend (happy little woman!), 
both highly respectable, and not too troublesome.' She is to come 
on the last night of the year. 

This will reach you on the first day of the new year; and I put 
many good wishes and a kiss into it. 

Do write to me how your sister is. 

Ever your affectionate 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 91. 

To Miss Eden Welsh, Liverpool. 

Chelsea: Jan. 20, 1847. 
Dearest Helen,— One hears much fine talk in this hypocritical age 
about seeking and even finding one's own happiness in ' the happi- 
ness of others;' but I frankly confess to you that I, as one solitary 
individual, have never been able to confound the two things, even 
in imagination, so as not to be capable of clearly distinguishing the 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



55 



(inference ; and if every one would endeavour, as I do, to speak 
without cant, I believe theK would be a pretty general admission 
on the part of sinful humanity tbat to eat a comfortable beef-steak 
when one is hungry yields a satisfaction of a much more positive 
character than seeing one's neighbour eat it! For the fact is, happi- 
ness is but a low thing, and there is a confusion of ideas in running 
after it on stilts. When Sir Philip Sidney took the water from his 
own parched lips to give it to the dying soldier, I could take my 
Bible oath that it was not happiness he felt; and that he would 
never have done that much admired action if his only compensation 
had been the pleasure resulting to him from seeing the dying soldier 
drink the water; he did it because he could not help himself; be- 
cause the sense of duty, of self-denial, was stronger in him at the 
moment, than low human appetite; because the soul in him said, do 
it; not because utilitarian philosophy suggested that he would find 
■his advantage in doing it, nor because Socinian dilettanteism re- 
quired of him a beautiful action! 

Well, but if these moral reflections are not a preamble to some- 
thing more relevant, I find such a commencement of a letter ' what 
shall I say? strange, upon my honour!' Do you so? my sweet 
little cousin — be thankful, then! we live in a world of common- 
place; a strange letter, a strange woman, so far from being taken 
sharply to task, should be accepted graciously, as a sort of refresh- 
ing novelty. 

But if I cannot show you that my moral reflections lead to some- 
thing, I can show you that something led to them. I had been 
looking over the last budget of autographs that I had got together 
for you. Such distinguished names! 'To be sure,' I said to my- 
self, ' these will make her fortune in autographs.' And then I felt 
a certain self-complacency, a certain presentiment of your satisfac- 
tion in seeing your collection swelling into something really worth 
while; and having the pen in my hand to write to you, I was on the 
point of putting on the paper some such fadaise as this: 'It was a 
capital thought in me, dearest Helen, the making of this collection 
for you. My own pleasure in sending you the autographs being 
greater, I am sure, than any you can feel in receiving them.' But 
the sentence having readied a full stop, in my head, my better 
judgment said, 'Bah! Beware of the Socinian jargon, ma chere, 
there is always " a do at the bottom of it!" ' and so my pen dashed 
off, of itself as it were, into a reactionary tirade against ' the welfare- 
of-others' principle. 

I have been long plaguing Carlj'le to give me, for you, one of the 
letters of Varnhagen von Ense; for besides being the autograph of 
a distinguished author and diplomatist and husband of Rahel. you 
will find it curious for its perfect beauty. I never saw such writing; 
and in whatever haste, in sickness or in health, it is always the 
same. 

Carlyle was very grumpy about parting with one of his letters; 
but, having taken a great deal of trouble for him the other day in 
seeking out some notes he wanted from his trunk of old papers, he 
presented me with this one as a reward; and also, I suppose, as an 
encouragement to future exertions of like utility. 

Besides Varnhagen von Ense, you have here Goethe, Sir Walter 
Scott, Rogers, Sir R. Peel, a whole note from Harriet Martineau 
(before our friendship), Charles Buller, Count d'Orsay, Miluian, a 
very characteristic note from Mazzini, Lord Stanley, Mrs. Austin, 
Lockhart, Thackeray (alias Titmarsh), Allan Cunningham. 

Tell Jeannie that when I informed Mazzini yesterday that Geral- 
dine was to be here on Monday, he first stared, then said ' Well ! 
after then I come for ten minutes only!' and then, looking into the 
fire, gave a long, clear.whistle! Jeannie can figure the sort of mood 
in which alone Mazzini could dream of whistling! 

But alas! I must go and clean the lamp, a much less agreeable 
occupation than writing to you, my dear. But such consequences 
of the fall of Adam will always exist. Nothing will go on any time 
without human labour. 

Ever your affectionate cousin, 

J. Carlyle. 

LETTER 92. 

To Miss Helen Welsh, Liverpool. 

Chelsea: July 15, 1847. 

My dearest Helen,— I would have written yesterday, if I could 
have done anything on earth but cry. I suppose 'the fact is,' as 
Carlyle says, 'that I am very unwell.' In a general way I can 
keep from crying at all rates. But this heat is most disorganising 
and demoralising. And so I fell acrying in the morning over my 
gifts, and could not stop myself again. 

Carlyle had prepared a cameo-brooch for me, and I cannot tell 
how it is, but his gifts always distress me more than a scold from 
him would do. Then the postman handed in your letter and little 
box, and that brought all sorts of remiuiscences of home and of 
Templand along with it; a beautiful little thing as ever I beheld! 
but too beautiful and too youthful for the individual intended to 
wear it. A hat-box from poor Bolte completed the overthrow of 
my sensibility : it contained an immense bouquet of the loveliest 
flowers, in the middle of which was stuck — her picture! in water- 
colours, and gilt-framed, and a note. I shall send you the note, 
that you may see Bolte in her best phase. People wonder always 



why I let myself be bored with that woman, but, with all her want 
of tact in the everyday intercourse of life, she manifests a senti- 
ment on occasions so delicate and deep, that I should be a brute not 
to be touched by it. 

Whose is the hair in the little basket? it looks all one shade. 

Thank you, dearest, and the others concerned in that little 
realised ideal of cousinly remembrance. I have attached it to my 
bracelet, but it seems almost a pity to wear it there. I was think- 
ing whether I ought not to have my nose pierced and suspend it 
from that. 

Perhaps I shall see you this summer after all. I really am 
suffering dreadfully from the heat; quite as ill, in a different way, 
as I was in winter from the cold. 

I cannot sleep or eat, can hardly sit upright, and am in a con- 
tinual high fever, obliged to keep wet cloths on my head all day 
long. In these astonishing circumstances Carlyle declares I abso- 
lutely must go away, and best to Haddington. He will take me 
there and leave me; so if I go to Haddington I shall surely go to 
Auchtertool ; but I am not there yet. I am to write to "Miss 
Donaldson to-day, to inquire if her house be empty; if the London 
family are there I shall consider that objection final. 

I hope, if I go, I may get off before Geraldiue returns, for I am 
not up to any visitor just now, not even to an angel awares. 

Kind love to all. 1 have that letter to Miss Donaldson to write 
and am already worn out. 

Ever your affectionate 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 93. 

October-November, 1846. — We went, for a week to the Grange — 
old Rogers, &c. My poor Jane's health very feeble. Beginning 
of December, bothered by various things, change of servants, fool- 
ish Helen off to Dublin to a foolish brother there, and to ruin, as it 
proved. My dear little woman fell quite ill — Dr. Christie attend- 
ing — and for three weeks was helpless, oftenest in bed, amid these 
household irritations, now painful to remember. Helen Welsh 
luckily was here on visit from Liverpool; before New Year's Day 
the hurly-burly, bad servants, Free Kirk Edinburgh ones, slow 
coach &c, swept away, and a new good one got; and my darling, 
once more victorious, seemed to be herself again. 

End of January, part of February 1847, at Bay House, Alverstoke; 
there again, however, she had a miserably bad sore throat, sad to 
read of in her letters. I idle, lying painfully fallow all this time, 
brother John busy with his Dante. 

August 1847 we go for Matlock, stay about a fortnight. W. E. 
Forster over from Rawdon (Bradford neighbourhood), loyal cheery 
ex-Quaker then, Radical politician now, ran over to join us, and, 
pressingly hospitable, took us home with him. Charming drive to 
Sheffield from the Peak country. Stay at Rawdon for another 
fortnight; there part; I for Scotsbrig, my Jeannie for a trial day 
or two at Barnsley (brother of Mrs. Paulet's there), and so home 
to Chelsea.— T. C. 

To T. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 

5 Cheyne Row: Saturday, Sept. 11, 1847. 
Here I am, then, safe and sound! rather tired, and as yellow as 
saffron with yesterday's journey; but that is all. I left Barnsley 
at one, and got home at eleven, rather low when I stopped at my 
own door all alone; but Anne received me with a little outburst of 
affection, as cheering as it was unexpected. What you will consider 
more to the purpose, she had everything in the nicest possible 
order; seemed really to have exerted herself to the uttermost in 
divining and executing my wishes. A better-cleaned house I 
never set my foot in : and even her own little person had bloomed 
out into new clothes for the occasion. All the carpets have been 
not only up, and most effectually cleaned, and nailed down again, 
as nobody but myself ever succeeded in nailing them before, but 
she has been at the unbargained-for pains to darn them, wherever 
they needed it. Nay, she has actually learned to stand on steps, 
and dusted every book on the shelves! Mrs. Piper has been at 
work like a very Brownie. Postie ' and she came at four o'clock 
one morning, and washed up all the blankets and counterpanes. 
And then the little post-woman herself fell upon the chair and 
table-covers, and, having washed them quite beautifully, nailed 
them all on again; so that the whole house looks as bright as a new 
pin. Postie had also helped to beat the carpets, considering that 
Eaves 2 was rather slimming them; but he charged Anne to keep 
this, and indeed all his doings, a secret from me. To fall to work 
messing and painting inside, now that everything is so well 
cleaned, and so late in the year, would, I think, be 'very absurd.' 3 
When the parlour is new-papered and painted, it should be done 
properly, and proper painting takes a prodigious time; but I will 
see somebody to-morrow, to speak at least concerning the outside. 

1 have not seen John yet, but he will come, I suppose, after his 
proofs are corrected. Nobody else knows of my return, and I 
shall keep it 'a secret to please him,' 4 till I feel a need of company, 

' Our excellent, punctual and obliging postman, for above twenty years. 

2 The ostler, turned out. (seven oreight years after) to be a very great scamp. 

3 Brother John's phrase. 

* ' Ou que manger un hareDg? C'est tin secret pour lui plaire? ' 



56 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



which I fancy will not be for some weeks to come. Meanwhile I 
have plenty to employ me, in siding ' drawers and locked places, 
which I left in the disgracefullest confusion; and in re-habilitating 
the clothes- department, which has been wonderfully reduced and 
dilapidated by these weeks of travel, to say nothing of plenty of 
letters lying on my conscience. Did you find at Scotsbrig a letter 
from Anthony Sterling announcing his father's death? Anne says 
he (Anthony) called here last Saturday to ask the address; and 
she gave him the Rawdon one. The poor old man had been quite 
insensible for a week before his death; and the week before that, 
he had insisted on having himself brought in the carriage to this 
door, though even then he was speechless. Anne said it was the 
saddest thing she ever saw. he waved to her to come to him, and 
made signs as if he were leaving a message for me, pointed repeat- 
edly to his lips, and then to the house, and then shook his head 
with tears running down. How often I have made a jest of that 
old man's affection for me. and now it looks one of the most valu- 
able affections I ever possessed, for he clung to it till his last 
moment of consciousness. His nurse, who came with him, told 
Anne she knew 1 was not at home, but it was perfectly impossible 
to hinder his coming. Anthony, Anne says, seemed 'dreadfully 
cut up;' he 'could hardly speak to her, for the tears in bis throat.' 
Your letter was lying for me last night when I came in, and 
gave me somehow the feeling of a letter written out of Hades. I 
hope I shall get another soon. I hardly supposed your Manchester 
worshippers, and least of all Geraldine, would let you off on the 
Tuesday. As to me, I could not well have got home on the 
Wednesday, even if much set on it, which 1 was not. On Tues- 
day, Nodes'-' and his wife took me through two immense factories, 
and a long drive besides in a phaeton. On the way home I was 
seized with one of my very worst fainting headaches, and had to be 
carried from the carriage to bed, where I la}' in what they took 
for a last agony, till midnight. Nothing could be kinder than Mrs. 
Newton was, but kindness could do nothing till the time came. 
Next day I got up to breakfast, but too brashed to dream of going 
off to London; so I agreed to stay till Friday. They would fain 
have had it Monday, but I could" not be so silly as to change my 
day twice. My visit was a highly successful one, except for that 
headache, which might have happened anywhere. The children 
are beautiful, lovable children, brought up as children used to be 
in my time, and no trouble to anybody. Mrs. Newton herself grows 
more attractive for me the more I see of her; her quiet good sense 
and loving-heartedness, and perfect naturalness, are very refreshing 
to one's world-used soul. Even poor Nodes is a much more in- 
teresting man at the head of his mill and bis family than when 
hanging loose on society in London — but it is twenty minutes after 
four. ' Ever yours, 

J. C. 

LETTER 94. 
John Forster, Esq., 58 Lincoln's Inn Fields. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Tuesday, Sept. 14, 1847. 
Dear Mr. Forster, — Here I am, then! returned to Chelsea; a 
sadder and a wiser woman for my five weeks of pursuit of the 
picturesque under difficulties. My husband and I parted company 
at Leeds a week ago. He is now in Annandale ' spending his time ' 
(he writes to me) ' chiefly in sleeping and in drinking new milk 
under various forms!' Rather bilious work, one would say! but 
every man to his humour! For me, I am spending my time chiefly 
in loving the devil out of a— Yorkshire kitten! which I have 
adopted for its inexpressible charm of tigerishness. But a huge 
brown-paper parcel of MS. lies like an incubus on my free spirit ! 
What is to be done? When and how are we to get through it? 

Since I arrived on Friday night. I have spoken with no mortal 
but my maid, and twice for ten minutes with my brother-in-law. I 
believe, besides you, there is still a man, or perhaps two, of my ac- 
quaintance left. But I feel so mesmerised by the s.il'ence and the 
dimness, that I have no power to announce my return. 
Write to me. I am prepared for anything. ' 

Ever yours affectionately, 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 95. 
To T. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea : Thursday, Sept. 16, 1847. 
Here are three notes for you, dear; and I cannot send them with- 
out a few lines from myself, though up to the ears in my curtains. 
If I had waited patiently a few hours longer yesterday, I might 
have spared you a shrewing Your nice long letter came in the 
evening; and before that, I had also seen John and been favoured 
with a reading of your letter to him. I could have found in my 
heart to box his ears, when I found it had been in his pocket since 
Monday night, and I only told of it then, at three o'clock on Wed- 
nesday, after my remonstrance was gone to the post-office. He 
did not seem to consider my impatience in the meanwhile ' of the 
slightest consequence.' In fact, he is, for the moment, ' a miserable 

1 Lancashire for 'sorting.* 

* Nodes Newton, Mrs. Paulet's brother at Barnsley. 



wretch, lost in proof-sheets.' ' He reminds me of the grey chicken 
at Craigenputtock, that went about for six weeks cackling over its 
first egg. If everybody held such a racket over his book as he, over 
this Dante of his, the world would be perfectly uninhabitable. 
But he comes seldom, and has always to ' take the road again ' in a 
few minutes, so I manage to endure the cackling with a certain 
stoicism. 

Nothing has happened to me since yesterday, except that in the 
evening f was startled, almost terrified, by a knock at the door. It 
was Fuz! I had written to him about G.'s- manuscript, and be an- 
swered my note in person, by return of post. I had expected ' a 
senile and free passage of pennies,' extending through, perhaps, a 
fortnight, before a meeting actually came off. 

He seemed very strong-hearted for the reading, which could not, 
however, be commenced last night, for he had to attend the sale of 
Shakespeare's house;, but on Sunday evening, 'by all that was 
sacred.' we would fall to in earnest, 'trusting in God that on that 
night lie should find me in good voice.' Meanwhile, 'were there 
any books — anything on earth — I wished? ' He would send Henry 
to-day. He stayed only half-an-hour — very fat! 

This morning a still greater terror struck into me when a carriage 
stopped at the door while I was sitting at breakfast in my dressing- 
gown. It was Anthony Sterling on his way from Headley. He did 
not offer at coming in; merely sent the servant to ask if I would 
be at home in the afternoon. I am glad he is coming, for I will 
get him to send me his painter, the one who was to bring me an 
estimate having never returned. I walked up to the Library yes- 
terday to get myself, if possible, something to read. White Owl 3 
expected to-day; library ' too bad for anything;' officials mortal 
drunk, or worse — overtaken with incurable idiocy ! Not a book one 
could touch without getting oneself made filthy. I expressed my 
horror of the scene, and was answered: 'Are you aware, ma'am, 
of the death of Mrs. Cochrane?' I brought away the last four 
numbers of ' Vanity Fair,' and read one of them in bed, during the 
night. Very good, indeed, beats Dickens out of the world. 

Chalmers is now raising brick fabrics — perfectly incomprehensible 
in their meaning hitherto 4 — in front of his house. 5 I told old John 
and the other workmen, yesterday, that there was no longer a doubt 
that they had all gone perfectly deranged. John shook his head 
quite sorrowfully, and said ' it was only too true.' 

The ' National,' Fuz told me, had started a very feasible idea 
about the Duke de Praslin's intention, in taking the loaded pistol 
with him. He had ordered the porter to come half-an-hour sooner 
than usual, and straight to his bedroom. He meant to shoot the 
porter, and make him pass for the murderer. 

Fuz was awfully excited on the subject of Luzzi. 6 

Ever yours, 

J. w. c. 

LETTER 96. 
To T. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea: Wednesday, Sept. 22, 1847. 

You are to know, then, that ever since I wrote the last letter to 
you, I have had no history ' to speak of,' having been confined 
pretty constantly to bed. When I wrote the last letter, I was already 
ill; in fact, I had never felt well from the first day of my return. 
But at that writing, I perceived I was in for some sort of regular 
illness. I thought, at first, it was going to be a violent cold, but it 
has not turned to a cold. I suppose a doctor would call it some 
sort of bilious or nervous fever. Whatever it has been, I have 
suffered horribly from irritation, nausea, and languor; but now I 
am in the way of getting well again. I am out of bed to-d^ty, and 
able to write to you, as you see. John has been very kind to me, 
since he knew of my illness, which was not till Sunday afternoon. 
He has come to see me twice a day; and one time stayed four 
hours in my bedroom, reading to me, &c. I prohibited him from 
telling you of it, as I did not want you to be kept anxious. But 
now I am so much better that there is not the slightest occasion for 
anxiety; and as to your being there, and not here, I assure you it 
has been the greatest possible comfort to me that it so happened. I 
can be twice as patient and composed, I find, when there is nobody 
put about by my being laid up. Had you been here, I should have 
struggled on longer without taking to bed, and been in the desper- 
atest haste to get out of it. All the nursing possible has been given 
me, by Anne "and Mrs. Piper; and the perfect quiet of the house 
could not have been had on other terms, nor could Anne have had 
time to attend to me as I required, if we had not had the house all 
to ourselves. 

So do not be voiced, and do not be uneasy; I have no ailment 
now, but weakness, and so soon as I can get into the air, that will 
wear off. 

And now I must stop for this time. 

Ever yours, J. W. C. 



1 ' Lost in statistics.' said old Sterling, of a certain philosopher here. 

2 Geraldine. 

3 Poor old Cochrane, our first librarian of London Library, and essentially 
the builder and architect there. The only real bibliographer I have ever met 
with in Britain. 

4 Turned out to be a porch and pillars. 5 Then No. 4, Cheyne Row, 

• Have forgotten. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



'" 



57 



Sept. 23. 
You must have another little letter to-day. dear, in case you take 
a notion to fret. I continue to mend rapidly. One of the people 
who has been kindest to me during- my illness is ' old John.' ' He 
has actually reduced all the pianos to utter silence. Hearing Anne 
say that the noise of his ladies was enough to drive her mistress 
mad, he said, ' I will put a stop to that,' and went immediately him- 
self into the drawing-room, and told the ladies then at the piano, 
'he wondered they were not ashamed of themselves, making such 
a noise, and Mrs. Carlyle at death's door on the other side of the 
wall.' And there has not been a note struck since — five days ago. 

J. C. 

LETTER 97. 
To T. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea: Friday, Sept. 34, 1847. 

You can't be said, dear, to have wasted many letters on me in 
this absence; but if you 'feel a stop ' (Quakerly speaking), best to 
let it have way; no good comes of forcing nature, in the matter 
of writing or any other matter. 

Meanwhile, I go on mending. I had more sleep last night, and 
feel strong enough to-day to meditate a short turn in the open air. 
When John comes, I shall propose it to him. I am not to go to 
Addiscombe to-morrow. Last night, at ten o'clock, I was just go- 
ing to bed very tired, John and Mazzini having sat talking ' Dante ' 
beside me, till I had to be struck with a sudden thought that M. 
would miss the Hoxtou omnibus, unless John saw him off instantly, 
when Anne came to announce the important fact of Mr. Fleming. 
' Well,' I said, ' send him away; I cannot receive him at this time 
of night.' But he would not be sent away. ' He had come charged 
with a message from Lady Harriet (!), and if I would just see him 
for five minutes.' The other time he called was with Mr. Baring; 
changed times for little Mrs. Harris. 2 

i The message was, that Lady H. was coming up on Saturday, to 
dine at Holland House on Sunday; so that she could not send for 
me on Saturday, according to programme, but would take me 
down with her on Monday. This she had told him (Fleming) when 
he was ' seeing her off; ' and he would tell her my answer ' when 
he dined with her at Holland House.' ' How very odd,' I said, 
' that you should be acting as Lady H.'s Ariel!' 'Oh, not at all 
now; we are excellent friends now, since we stayed together at 
Sir W. Molesworth's; and there is nothing I would not do for her! 
she is the dearest, play fullest, wittiest creature. I love her beyond 
everything.' ' Very absurd.' 

If I can get off from going now, without discourtesy, I will; for 
to stay over Tuesday is not worth the fag of going and coming; 
besides, my paiuting will terminate, I expect, on Saturday night. 
And there is yet another thing that takes away my ardour for go- 
ing. Fleming gravely accused me of having brought ou this ill- 
ness, as I did so many others, by my "unheard-of imprudence.' 
'Lady Harriet assures me that nothing was ever like your indis- 
cretion in diet, and that all these attacks proceed from that cause.' 
Now, I require to have every furtherance given to any faculty 
that may lie in me for eating and drinking at present, instead of 
living and eating in the fear of being thought and published a glut- 
ton. 3 The quantity of wine that John prescribes for me might 
also obtain me the reputation of a drunkard. And I believe it 
quite necessary, when for days together one's pulse ' could not be 
counted.' Fleming's ' five minutes' prolonged themselves to half- 
an-hour, and then I was obliged to tell him that I could sit up no 
longer. And he went away in his little thunder-and lightning em- 
broidered shirt, and his little new curled wig, lisping out: ' Lshall 
tell Lady Harriet that I found you in a temperature sufficient to 
produce a bilious fever.' It was all I could do to keep from sum- 
moning all my remaining strength together and ' doubling him 
up,' 4 prating iu that fashion to me, who had just come through 
such a week of suffering. Never mind, Chalmers's old John comes 
to ask after me the first thing every morning; and he keeps all the 
pianos down. And my maid nurses me with an alacrity and kind- 
ness that could not be bought with money; and the more I eat, the 
better you are always pleased. 

Kind regards to them all. I hope your mother don't say every 
half-hour, ' I wonder how Jane is? ' 

Yours ever, 

J. W. C. 
LETTER 98. 

To T. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 

Addiscombe s : Friday, Oct. 1, 1847. 

Just two lines, dear, before starting, in case I arrive, as is likely, 
with a head too bad for writing from Chelsea, by to day's post. 

My visit here has gone off rather successfully in one sense. I 
never saw Lady Harriet in such spirits, so talkative and disposed 

■ 

1 Servant in the adjoining house. 

3 He used to come very assiduously hither, poor little soul, but was now 
rising; in the world. 

3 Singular indeed! In this world the force of nonsense could no farther go. 

* Dickens, ' Dombey's marriage, 1 man of ' science ' contemplating Dombey 
on that occasion. 

6 On a visit to Lady Harriet Baring. 



to be talked to. I should have enjoyed being beside her more than 
usual if 1 had not felt a need of exerting myself much beyond my 
strength, as she made a point of ignoring the fact that anything 
ailed me. I fancy it must be one of her notions about me, that 1 
am hypochondriacal : ami to be made well by being treated as though 
there was not a doubt of it. 1 

Happily, I have got through it without giving any trouble; but 
shall be glad to get home to-day, where I may have a tiiv in my 
room when I am shivering, and a glass of wine wiien I am exhausted, 
and may go to bed when my head gets the better of me, without 
feeling it to be ' a secret to displease her.' Every day here I have 
had to slip into bed about two, and lie with a dreadful headache till 
ti vi-, when it went suddenly away. And when the housemaid (not 
Eliza, she is in town) found that I lighted my bedroom fire myself, 
she carried away the coals; and no bell could bring her; and the 
room is so cold and damp now there is no sun. And then no din- 
ner till six, and no wine but hock, which makes me ill ; and John 
had bid me take two glasses (no less) of Madeira; and, in short, 
' there is no place like home ' for being sick in; and I should under- 
stand this, once for all. I am a little stronger, however, than I 
came, though I have not had one good night, and I expect to feel 
tiie benefit of the change when I return. When I look at my white, 
white face in the glass, I wonder how anybody can believe I am 
fancying. Ever yours, 

J. C. 

LETTER 99. 

To T. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea: Saturday. Oct. 2, 1847. 

'Thanks God,' dear, I write from home again! I arrived yester- 
day, much in the state 1 expected, with a racking headache and 
faceache, but also with a little ' monarch of all I survey ' feeling, 
which was compensation ' for much ',! In my life I think I never 
did so enjoy giving orders and being waited upon as last night, and 
being asked what I would like to take, and getting it! And thanks 
to the considerable mess of porridge, which John inculcated, I had 
some sleep, and to-day I am quite free of headache, and the faceache 
is greatly diminished; and I bad very nice coffee in bed, and a 
fire to dress at, and, in short, I feel in a state of luxury perfectly 
indescribable! Your letter last night, too, was a most agreeable 
surprise; two letters in one day! That I was not exacting enough 
to have ever looked for! Lady Harriet spoke of writing to you one 
of these days. On Monday she comes to town, to go to the Grange 
on Tuesday, perhaps; for, if Charles Buller comes from Cornwall 
on Monday, lie might like one day at the Cottage before they go, in 
which case they would put off going to the Grange till Wednesday. 
Or, perhaps, 'if Mr. Baring wants two days in London,' Lady H. 
would come up with him on Monday and go somewhere (Lord 
Grey's, I think) over Tuesday. At all events, the Grange, after 
Wednesday, seemed her probable address. Some time in Novem- 
ber she expected to be iu town for a week; and after Christmas she 
wished us to go to Alverstoke. She has got a grey Spanish horse, 
looked up for her by Mr. Fleming, and a new riding habit and 
beaver, and is 'going to ride quick now.' The coachman lias made 
a new epigram about you. He was backing out Mr. Baring in try- 
ing to persuade her ladyship to ride the 'Kangaroo.' ' Good gra- 
cious! ' said Lady H., ' do none of you remember how it behaved 
with Mrs. Carlyle? She could not ride it!' 'Pooh! pooh!' said 
the old humbug, ' Mrs. Carlyle could have ridden the horse perfectly 
well ; it was not the horse Mrs. Carlyle was afraid of. What she 
was afraid of was Mr. Carlyle!' 

Well, if the coachman don't appreciate you, here is ' a young 
heart ' that does, ' immortal one! ' 

The note I send is accompanied by a blood-red volume entitled 
' Criticisms.' I have looked at the gratitude in the preface — a very 
grand paragraph indeed about the magnificent Trench! and the 
colossal Carlyle; one of whom ' reminds us of some gigantic river, 
now winding,' &c. &c. ; 'the other of some tremendous being, 
struggling with mighty power.' &c., &c. A very tremendous block- 
head does this writer remind us of! 

I can tell you next to nothing of Mazzini. After I had been at 
home a week I sent him simply my visiting card, which, however, 
he immediately replied lo in person; but when lie arrived I had 
already fallen ill, was justgoingto bed iu a fainting stale, and could 
merely shake hands with him and bid him go away. He sent to ask 
for me two or three days after, and a week after he came one even- 
ing when John was here, who kept him all the time talking about 
Dante, and iu an hour I was wearied and sent them away together. 
That is all I have seen of him ; and all he had got to tell me of ' our 
things ' was that he had been for weeks expecting private informa- 
tion that would take him away at an hour's nolice. but that now 
there seemed no prospect of anything immediate taking effect, and 
that on the 10th October he would go to Paris for a month, and 
• into the valley of Madame Sand.' I asked if he had meant to put 
himself at the disposal of the Pope. 'Oh, no! 'he said; what he 
aimed at was 'to organise and lead an expedition into Lombardy, 
which would be better than being an individual under the Pope,' 

1 Patience ! patience I but there never was a more complete mistake. 



58 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



in which words seemed to me to lie the whole secret of Mazzini's 
'failed life.' ' 
Kind regards to the others. 

Ever faithfully yours, 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 100. 

This is Thomas Speddiug's residence. I had halted there for a 
day or two on my return. Very sad to leave my dear old mother, 
I can still recollect, and much out of sorts, being still in the dumb 
state. What did come next of writing after ' Cromwell '? Painter 
Lawrence was there and James Spedding; both in high spirits. 

'Jo T. Carlyle, Mirehov.se, Keswick. 

Chelsea: Saturday, Oct. 9, 1*47. 

Oh, my dear! my dear! I am so busy! which is better than being 
' so sick'! When Mrs. Piper came this morning and found me on 
the steps she looked quite aghast, and said, ' You will lay yourself 
up again! ' ' Not a bit,' I told her; ' I feel quite strong to-day.' ' I 
am afraid, ma'm,' suggested the little woman, 'it is not strength, 
but the false excitement of Mr. Carlyle coming home! ' Anne re- 
marked, ' Whatever it was, it was no use stopping Missus if she had 
anything on her mind. She was an example!' She 'wondered 
where there was another lady that could stuff chair-cushions, and 
do anything that was needed, and be a lady too ! ' So now I think 
I am strong enough in Anne's respect to even smoke in her presence. 
The worst of it is that my work in these days has been Cromwellian 
work — makes no show for the pains, consists chiefly in annihilating 
rubbish; annihilating worms for one thing. Only think of Henry 
Taylor's famous chair 8 being partly stuffed with dirty old carpet 
shorn small, which had generated naturally these hundred thousand 
millions of 'small beings' (as Mazzini would say). Mrs. Piper saw- 
some of them outside when she washed the covers, and I understood 
thai ' indication ' at all events. So I had hair, rubbish, and worms, 
all Boiled together in the cauldron, and then the clean hair picked 
out, and then I remade the cushions with my owu hands.' 

Besides this, I have been in a pretty mess with Emerson's bed, 
having some apprehensions he would arrive before it was up again. 
The quantity of sewing that lies in a lined chintz bed is something 
awfully grand! And I have been able to get next to no help, all the 
sewing women I knew of being unable to come, though ' sorry to 
disoblige,' &c. One had 'work on her hands for three months'; 
another was 'under a course of physic'; another 'found it more 
profitable to sew at home.' Postie realised me a little woman, who, 
having a baby a month old, could only come for three hours in the 
day ; ami one day she came, and had sense more or less, and was to 

c ■ every day for three hours till we had finished. But on going 

home she found 'her baby had never cried so much since it was 
born;' and she came in the evening to say she could leave it no 
more; so there was nothing for it but to fall on the thing like a 
tiger myself, and it is now well forward, though I fear it will not 
lie up, as I wished, to delight your eyes when you come. 

For the rest, my life is as still as could be wished. Mr. Ireland 2 
called last night and told me much of your sayings at the Brights. 
Lady Harriet called on Tuesday afternoon. She had actually rid- 
den from Addiscombe to Loudon the day before on the Spanish 
horse. 'The coachman put Mr. Paring on one of the carriage 
horses,' neither ' the Kangaroo ' nor the chestnut being judged safe 
company. ' He rode half the. way on that, and then the helper came 
up on Mult (the pony), and he got on Muff for the rest of the way.' 
Good Mr. Baring! 1 showed Lady H. the book of the 'Young 
Heart.' ami she wrote marginal notes all over it for you, which, she 
said, along with the list of books she had sent, might 'stand very well 
for a letter. I could not but think from her manner that day that she 
had bethought her I had been rather roughly handled on my last visit. 
She even offered me a ' tonic,' which had been given to her by Sir 
J. Clarke. ' Certainly I ought to have something to strengthen me; 
something to make me eat! She never saw a human creature eatso 
little!" And a great many more unsayings of things she said at 
Addiscombe. She was going to dine at the Greys and next morn- 
ing to the Grange, where were Croker and his women — and Miss 
Mil ton 1 ! ' ' 

Charles Duller came on Monday, and is going into Normandy. 
Miss Mitford reminds me of Miss Strickland. Craik, whom I saw 
yesterday, tol.l me that the book which is the most decided success 
at presenl is 'The Queens of England'! Colburn has made some 
twenty thousand pounds by it ! And the authoress too is enriched. 
She goes to the Duke of ' Cleveland's, &c, &c. (Lady Clara told 
John), and is treated there like a high-priestess! everybody defer- 
ring to her opinions 

But what is the use of all this writing, and with such a horrid pen, 
when you are coming so soon? On Monday I hardly expect you. 

1 Bolte's translation ->f Verfehltes Leben. 

- A trlft of his; still here. 

s .V Manchester 'editorial gentleman,' &c. &c He and another took me 
out one evening to Rochdale, where ensue<l (not by my blame or seeking! a 
paltry enough speaking-match with John Bright (topics commonplace, shal- 
low , totally worthless to me), the only time I ever saw that gentleman, whom 
Iseem to have known sufficiently without seeing ever since. 



But I shall hear. Thanks for your long letters in such a worry. 
The Hunts ' give splendid Soire\ s. 

Ever 3'ours faithfully, 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 101. 
John Forster, Esq.. 58 Lincoln's Inn Fields. 

Chelsea; Saturday, Not. 20, 1847. 

Dear Mr. Forster, — Sure enough^ we are in the gloomy month of 
November, when the people of England ' commit suicide ' under 
'attenuating circumstances.' The expediency, nay necessity, of 
suiciding myself is no longer a question with me. I am only un- 
certain as to the manner! 

On Thursday I was appointed to go to Notting Hill to see my 
husband's bust; and had to break my appointment, unfeeling as it 
looked to let myself be withheld by any weather from going to see 
my husband's bust. I thought it would be more really unfeeling to 
risk an inflammation in my husband's wife's chest, which makes my 
husband's wife such a nuisance as you, an unmarried man, can 
hardly figure. Since then I have mostly lain on the sofa, under the 
horse-cloth, reading, ' with oue'eye shut and the other not open ' (ai 
poor Darley used to say), some of those divine volumes you lent me. 
Surely it was in the spirit of divination that I selected ' The Human 
Body in Health and Disease'; and the ' Means of Abridging Human 
Life'; and ' Hints on the Formation of Character.' One has such 
leisure for forming one's character during a shut-up winter! 

You perceive whither all this is tending; and wish that I would 
hasten to the catastrophe. Well, the catastrophe is — I write it 
with tears in my eyes — that I cannot venture to the play on Monday 
night. Even if I did not, as is almost certain I should, bring on my 
cough. I should pass for capricious, insane; and the worst of it is, 
O, having no longer a duty to fulfil in promoting my happiness, de- 
clans that he won't go either, and that I had best write to you that 
you may take no seats for us. I do so, unwillingly; for if the 
weather were to 'go soft,' as Geraldine would say, I might be about 
again on Monday ; and in any case he ought to go to his friend's first 
night. But there is no rebelling against Providence. 

I am also bothered about these proofs; 2 C. has got some furious 
objection to my meddling with them — even declares that I ' do not 
know bad grammar when I see it, any better than she does; ' that 
' if I had any faculty I might rind better employment for it,' &c, 
&c. So, after having written to her that I would do what she 
wished, I must write again that I am not permitted. 

I do think, there is much truth in the Young German idea that 
marriage is a shockingly immoral institution, as well as what we 
have long known it for — an extremely disagreeable one. 

1 'lease countermand the proofs, for every one that comes occa- 
sions a row. , 

Ever affectionately yours, 

J. C. 

LETTER 102. 
To John Welsh, Esq., Liverpool. 

Chelsea: Dec. 13, 1847. 

My dearest Uncle, — I write to you de profundis, that is to say, 
from the depths of my tub-chair, into which I have migrated withiu 
the last two hours, out of the still lower depths of my gigantic red 
bed, which has held me all this week, a victim to the ' inclemency 
of the season '! Oh, uncle of my affections, such a season! Did -. 
you ever feel the like of it? Ahead}- solid ice in one's water jug! 
'poor Gardincrs all froz out,' and Captain Sterling going at large 
in a dress of skins, the same that he wore in Canada! I tried to 
make head against it by force of volition — kept off the fire as if I 
had been still at ' Miss Hall's,' where it was a fine of sixpence to 
touch the hearthrug, and walked, walked, on Carlyle's pernicious 
counsel (always forme, at least) to 'take the bull by the horns,' 
instead of following Darwin's more sensible maxim, 'in matters of 
health always consult your sensations.' And so, 'by working 
late and early, I'm come to what ye see'! in a tub-chair — a little 
live bundle of flannel shawls and dressing-gowns, with little or no 
strength to speak of, having coughed myself all to fiddle-strings in 
the course of the week, and ' in a dibble of a temper,' if I had only 
anybody to vent it on! 

Nevertheless, I am sure 'I have now got the turn,' for I feel 
what Carlyle would call 'a wholesome desire to smoke'! which 
cannot be gratified, as C. is dining with Darwin; but the tendency 
indicates a return to my normal state of health. 

The next best thing I can think of is to write to thee; beside 
one's bedroom fire, in a tub-chair, the family affections bloom up 
so strong in one! Moreover, I have just been reading for the first 
time Harriet Martineau's outpourings in the ' Athenaeum,' and ' that 
minds me,' as my Helen says, that you wished to know if I too had 
gone into this devilish thing. Catch me! What I think about it 
were not easy to say, but one thing I am very sure of, that the less 

■ li.is to do with it the better; and that it is all of one family will) 

witchcraft, demoniacal possession — is, in fact, the selfsame principle 



1 Our neighbours still. I know not why so prosperous at presenl 
'- Proofs of a novel by Miss Jewsbury. * 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



59 



presenting itself under new scientific forms, and under a polite 
name. To deny that there is such a thing as animal magnetism, 
and that it actually does produce many of the phenomena here re- 
corded, is idle; nor do I find much of this, which seems wonderful 
because we think of it for the first lime, a whit more wonderful 
than those common instances of it, which never struck us with sur- 
prise merely because we have been used to see them all our lives. 
Everybody, for instance, lias seen children thrown almost into con- 
vulsions by someone going through the motions of tickling them! 
Nay, one has known a sensitive uucle shrink his head between his 
shoulders at the first pointing of a finger towards his neck! 

Does not a man physically tremble under the mere look of a wild 
beast or fellow-man that is stronger than himself V Does not a wo- 
man redden all over when she feels her lover's eyes on her? How 
then should one doubt the mysterious power of one individual over 
.■iimiher? Or what is there more surprising in being made rigid 
than ia being made red? in falling into sleep, than in falling into 
convulsions? in following somebody across a room, than in trem- 
bling before him from head to foot? I perfectly believe, then, iu 
the power of magnetism to throw people into all sorts of unnatural 
states of body; could have believed so far without the evidence of 
my senses, and have the evidence of my senses for it also. 

I saw Miss Bolte magnetised one evening at Mrs. Buller's by a 
distinguished magnetiser, who could not sound his h's, and who 
maintained, nevertheless, that mesmerism 'consisted in moral and 
intellectual superiority.' In a quarter of an hour, by gazing with 
his dark animal eyes into hers, and simply holding one of her hands, 
while his other rested on her head, he had made her into the image 
of death; no marble was ever colder, paler, or more motionless, 
and her face had that peculiarly beautiful expression which Miss 
Martineau speaks of, never seen but in a dead face, or a mesmer- 
ised one. Then he played cautrups with her arm and leg, and left 
them stretched out for an hour in au attitude which no awake per- 
son could have preserved for three minutes. I touched them, and 
they felt horrid — stiff as iron, I could not bend them down with all 
my force. They pricked her hand with the point of a penknife, 
she felt nothing. And now comes the strangest part of my story. 
The man, who regarded Carlyle and me as Philistines, said, ' Now 
are you convinced? ' ' Yes,' said Carlyle, ' there is no possibility of 
doubting but that you have stiffened all poor little Miss Bolte there 
into something very awful.' 'Yes,' said I pertly, 'but then she 
wished to be magnetised; what I doubt is, whether anyone could 
be reduced to that state without the consent of their own volition. 
I should like for instance to see anyone magnetise me! ' ' You think 
I could not? ' said the man with a look of ineffable disdain. ' Yes,' 
said I, ' I defy you! ' ' Will you give me your hand, Miss? ' ' Oh, 
by all means;' and I gave him my hand with the most perfect con- 
fidence in my force of volition, and a smile of contempt. He held 
it in one of his, 'and with the other made what Harriet Martineau 
calls some ' passes ' over it, as if he were darting something from 
his finger ends. I looked him defiant!)' in the face, as much as to 
say, ' You must learn to sound your h's, sir, before you can pro- 
duce any effect on a woman like me! ' And whilst this or some 
similar thought was passing through my head — flash there went 
over me, from head to foot, something precisely like what I once 
experienced from taking hold of a galvanic ball, only not nearly so 
violent. I hail presence of mind to keep looking, hint in the face, 
as if I had felt nothing; and presently lie flung away my hand with 
a provoked look, saying, ' I believe you would be a very difficult 
subject, but nevertheless, if I had time given me, I am sure I could 
mesmerise you; at least, I never failed with anyone as yet.' 

Now, if this destroyed for me my theory of the need of a con- 
senting will, it as signally destroyed his of moral and intellectual 
superiority; for that man was superior to me in nothing but animal 
strength, as I am a living woman! I could even hinder him from 
perceiving that he had mesmerised me, by my moral and intellect- 
ual superiority! Of the clairvoyance I have witnessed nothing; 
but one knows that people with a diseased or violently excited state 
of nerves can see more than their neighbours. When my insane 
friend was in this house he said many things on the strength of his 
insanity which in a mesmerised person would have been quoted as 
miracles of clairvoyance. 

Of course a vast deal of what one hears is humbug. This girl of 
Harriet's seems half-diseased, half-make-believing. I think it a 
horrible blasphemy they are there perpetrating, in exploiting that 
poor girl for their idle purposes of curiosity! In fact, I quite agree 
with the girl, that, had this Mrs. Winyard lived in an earlier age of 
the world, she would have been burned for a witch, and deserved 
it better than many that were; since her poking into these mys- 
teries of nature is not the result of superstitious ignorance, but of 
educated self-conceit. 

In fact, with all this amount of belief in the results of animal 
magnetism, I regard it as a damnable sort of tempting of Provi- 
dence, which I, as one solitary individual, will henceforth stand 
entirely aloof from. 

And now, having given you my views at great length, I will re- 
turn to my bed and compose my mind. Love to all; thanks to 
Helen. With tremendous kisses, 

Your devoted niece, 

Jane Carlyle. 



That wretched little Babbie does not write because I owe her a 
letter. A letter from her would have been some comfort in these 
dreary days of sickness; but since she has not bestowed it, I owe 
her the less thanks. 

LETTER 103. 
To T. Carlyle, Esq,, at Afoersioke.* 

Chelsea: Monday, Jan. 17, 1848. 
Well, dearest, I have written what I have written, and what I 
have written I will keep to. If I am spared on foot till Thursday, 
I will go on Thursday, and accept the consequences — if any. This 
time lam under engagement to go, and it is pitiful to break one's 
engagement for anything short of necessity. But I will uevtr, with 
the health I have, or rather have not, engage to leave home for a 
long fixed period, another winter. One of the main uses of a home 
is to stay in it, when one is too weak and spiritless for conforming, 
without effort, to the ways of other houses. Besides, is not home 
— at least, was it not ' in more earnest times' — ' the woman's proper 
sphere'? Decidedly, if she ' have nothing to keep her at home,' as 
the phrase is, she should 'find something — or die!' That is my 
idea in the days of solitary musing. Amusement after a certain agt. 
is no go; even when there are no other nullifying conditions, it 
gets to be merely distraction, in the Gambardella sense; between 
which and distraction in the general sense there is but a thiu parti- 
tion, so thin that one can hear through it, whenever one likes to 
listen, the clanking of chains, and the shrieking of 'mads,' as 
plainly as I am hearing at this moment the Chalmers's pianoforte. 
Ah, yes, I had found out that, 'by my own smartness,' before I 
took to reading on insanity. To be sure, it is hard on flesh and 
blood, when one ' has nothing to keep one at home,' to sit down in 
honest life- weariness, and look out into unmitigated zero; but pet- 
haps it ' would be a great advantage ' just to ' go ahead ' in that; 
the bare-faced indigence of such a state might drive one, like the 
piper's cow.to ' consider,' 2 and who knows but, in considering long 
enough, one might discover what one ' has wanted,' and what one 
' wants ' — an essential preliminary to getting it. Meanwhile here is 
Hare's Sterling book come for you — late, for Miss Wynne had read 
it four days ago — and ' with the publisher's compliments.' No copy 
had been sent to Authony when I saw him; he had bought it, and 
said if you did not feel yourself bound to place his brother iu a true 
light, he must attempt it himself. By the way, what a tine fellow 
that Mr. O. Holmes is! a sort of man that one would like to see. 
And Dr. MacEnnery, did not you find his letter had a sort of Crom- 
wellian sincerity and helplessness 'not without worth '? My head 
aches a great deal, which is natural, for, except the first night after 
you weut, I have slept little — some three hours a night, and that in 
small pieces; but I am able to lie quite peaceably, without reading. 

LETTER 104. 
To T. Carlyle, Esq., at Aiterstoke. 

Chelsea: Jan. 18, 1848. 
Ah, my dear! We are both busy reflecting, it would seem; 
driven to it, by quite opposite pressures— you by stress of society, 
and I by stress of solitude. A la bonne In ure ! reflection is golden; 
provided one ' go into practice with it; ' otherwise, if, as in my case, 
for most part it serves only to make the inward darkness more visi- 
ble, why, then, as John said of the senna , one had ' better take it, 
but perhaps one had better not.' 

Poor human creatures ' after all ' ! I am heartily sorry for them, 
severally, and in the lump; think sometimes it would be ' a great 
advantage ' if we were all ' fed off ! ' but one thinks many things, in 
moments of wnenthusiasm, which one does not authentically mean. 
Today, however, is the brightest of sunshiny days; and last night 
I slept like a Christian, and so I ought to feel better, and shall, per- 
haps, before evening. No letters but your own, for which I was 
thankful. There was one last night from Espinasse— too much of 
Emerson, whom lie 'likes much better than he did.' In reply to 
my charge that Emerson had no ideas (except mad ones) that he 
had not got out of you. Espinasse answers prettily, ' but pray, Mrs. 
Carlyle, who has? ' He (E.) had been discussing you with a ' Bey,' 
whom he met at Geraldine's, sent by the Egyptian ;. and the Bey 
• had the impudence to say ' : ' M. Carlyle n'a pas asse~ dc fond pour 
i'i sprit francaise.' 

I must not write any more to-day, for that weary head 'likes' 
writing as ill as Mrs. Howatson's ' disguster ' liked ewe cheese. 

Faithfully yours. 

• Jane W. C. 

LETTER 105. 
To T. Carlyle at Alverstoke. 

Chelsea: Jan. 21, 1848. 
Well, dear, I have written to Lady Harriet that I am not going at 
all — the only rational course under the circumstances. So now you 



' Carlyle on visit there to Mr. and Lady Harriet Baring, has written to press 
his wife to join him.— J. A. F. 
• Note, p. 16. 



60 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



are to do what you think best for yourself, without reference to 
me. You are not to hurry home on my account. I am not so ill 
as to make that a duty for you; nor so well as to make it a pleas- 
ure. But if you continue ill yourself, you will certainly be better 
in your own nest, with me to tell it to, and all your own way, as 
far as material things are concerned. Do not be uneasy about me. 
I should know the ways of this sort of cold by now; and I am sure 
that with reasonable care it need turn to nothing dangerous, though 
it might easily be fixed in my lungs by any rashness. John said he 
would write a note himself. I sent for him to take counsel before 
I began writing. Some Watts have come to town, with whom he 
dines, &c. ; and it is amazing how, in a few days, he has gone all to 
smithers (morally). Last night he came, for an hour, before going 
to these Watts, and found me lying on the sofa, very much done 
up, and coffing worse thau usual. " How d'ye do?' he said, like 
Mr. Toots. 

Mercy, I am going to be belated. 

LETTER 106. 
To John Forster, Esq., 58 Lincoln'* Inn Fields. 

5 Cheyne Row: Saturday, Feb. 1848. 

Dear Mr. Forster, — It is too bad to plague you with ' a delicate 
embarrassment ' of mine, when you are overhead in ' earnest work;' 
but what can I do? If you do not cut me out, my husband will, at 
the least, send me to Gehenna; and I would much rather not. 

Geraldine writes to me this morning (our correspondence had 
been at a still-stand ever since that feast of ' meats,' ' and love, and 
tobacco, at the Fornisari's) that I may expect a copy of her book 
next week, I had no notion it would be ready so soon. Well! for 
the delicate embarrassment — she does not say anything about the 
dedication to Mrs. Paulet and myself, which her heart u as much set 
on some months ago. and which, that is my share iu it, I neither posi- 
tively accorded to, nor positively declined at the time, meaning to 
revise the question when the book was ready for being dedicated, 
and to be guided by my husband's authentic feelings iu the matter. 
Knowing his dislike to be connected in people's minds, by even the 
slightest spider-thread, with what he calls ' George Sandism and all 
that accursed sort of thing,' I was not sure that the half-toleration 
he gave when asked about it would not be changed into prohibi- 
tion, if he found it likely to lie acted upon. At the time I sounded 
his feelings, the book, I was able to assure him, contained nothing 
questionable. Can 1 say so now? If anything of the last chapters 
1 read be left in it, not only would he detest a dedication to his 
wife, but his wile herself would detest it. What I want you to do 
is, if there be a dedication, to erase my name; and have it all to 
Mrs. Paulet, and tell me that you have so done; and I will write to 
Geraldine an explanation of the fact. If there be no dedication, 
tell me all the same, and then I shall not need to hurt the poor lit- 
tle soul's sensibilities by a premature refusal. You see how I am 
situated, wishing not to give pain to Geraldine — still less to give 
offence to my husband; and least of all, to promenade myself as an 
' emancipated ' woman. I am still confined to the house — weary 
work. Ever affectionately your-, 

Jane Carlyle. 

Have you the other novels of the Currer Bell people? I should 
like them any time. 

LETTER 107. 
To T. Carlyle, Chelsea. 

Croydon 3 : Thursday, April 13, 1848. 
If better for you iu all other respects that I should remain in 
' some other part of the country,' my return will have, at least, one 
comfort iu it, that I do serve- to ' stave off' the people from you, 
especially at meal-times? But perhaps it is more the cold than the 
people that makes you more unwell than usual iu these days. I 
have no people here to worry me. have nothing to complain of as 
to diet, or hours, or noise; and I have not had one well moment 
day or night, except that day you came. However, I have always 
been able to keep on foot, and to put a good face on myself; so I 
have not had the uu-' pleasant additimental ' consciousness of being 
a bore. Mr. Baring hasnot returned yet. On Tuesday evening, 
aftei dinner, Lady- Harriet went up to'the opera — very rashly, I 
thought, having risen from her sofa to go; but she returned quite 
well next dav about one o'clock. .Mr. Baring is not to come, I be- 
lieve, till she goes up for the Molesworth dinner on Sunday. The 
evening I spent here, so unexpectedly, alone, was like a morphia 
dream. The stillness was something superhuman; for the servants, 
it seemed to me, so soon as they got their Lady out of the way, 
went, all but Williams, off into space. While I'was upstairs for a 
moment, light had been brought in; and, an hour after, tea was 
placed for me iu the same invisible manner. I looked, to myself, 
silting there, all alone, in the midst of comforts and luxuries not 
my own, like one of those wayfarers in the fairy tales, who, having 
left home with ' a bannock ' to ' poose their fortune,' and followed 



1 Not ' shells ' (Ossian). 

a Mrs. Carlyle, after three months' illness, was now at Addiscombe.— J. A. F. 



the road their ' stick fell towards,' find themselves in a beautiful 
enchanted palace, where all their wants are supplied to them by 
supernatural agency; — hospitality of the most exquisite descrip- 
tion, only without a host! I had beeu reading Swift all day; but I 
found that now too prosaical for my romantic circumstances; and, 
seeking through the books, I came upon ' The Romance of the 
Forest,' which I seized on with avidity, remembering the ' tremen- 
dous' emotions with which I read it iu my night-shift, by the red 
light of our dying schoolroom tire, nearly half a century ago, when 
I was supposed to be sleeping the sleep of good children. And 
over that 1 actually spent the whole evening; it was so interesting 
to measure my progress — downwards I must think — by comparing 
my present feeliugs at certain well-remembered passages with the 
past. After all, it might have been worse with my imaginative 
past. I decidedly like the dear old book, even in this year of grace, 
far better than 'Rose Blanche,' &C. 1 Execrable, that is; I could 
not have suspected even the ape of writing anything so silly. 
Lady II. read it all the way down, and decided it was ' too vulgar 
to go on with.' I myself should have also laid it aside in the first 
half volume if I had not felt a pitying interest in the man, that 
makes me read on in hope of coming to something a little better. 
Your marginal notes are the only real amusement I have got out of 
it hitherto. 

My head feels as usual to be full of melted lead, swaying this 
way and that. There is no walking off the heaviness if walkable 
oil. for the rain is incessant. Tell Anne to bid the confectioner 
bake half a dozen fresh little cakes for the X 's. Have pati- 
ence with them. Are they not seeking, which is next best to hav- 
ing found? 

Ever yours, 

J. C. 
LETTER 108. 

John Forster, Esq., 58 Lincoln's Inn Fields, 

Chelsea : Thursday morning, April 1849. 
Dear Friend. — Your Ganymede found me yesterday in a mortal 
crisis: in the thick of two afflictions, which put together did not 
make a consolation. In the first, place I had got one of my patent 
headaches to do, which absolutely could not be put off any longer; 
and at tin- same time it was required of me to endure the infinite 
clatter of an old lady — clack, clack, clack, like pailfuls of water 
poured all over me. world without end. Nevertheless I showed 
myself to Ganymede for a moment, and bade him tell you heaven 
knows whal ! — that it was ' all right.' or that it was 'all wrong,' or 
perhaps that it was all right and all wrong in the same breath. I 
did not know what I was saying. Now that I do, thank you for 
the books and the veil and the stick. I have forwarded your note to 
Sterling, and doubt not but it will find the gracious welcome which 
it deserves; — and nothing earthly or divine shall make me forget! 
Bless you! I never forget anything, except now and then my veil, 
and, always and for ever, the multiplication table! I have never, 
for example, forgotten a single one of all the kindnesses you have 
shown me! So you may expect us on Thursday, as far as depends 
on me, with a confidence which has for its basis the lawsof nature. 

Affectionately yours, 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 109. 

Poor Helen's Dublin glories ended (the second year, I think) in 
total wreck — drink, quarrel with her fool of a brother, dismissal 
home or into outer darkness, and adieu of the sj/ilfin kind! From 
home she sent inquiries hither: old regrets, new alacrities, &c. &c. 
As our good little Aune was now to be wedded, and go to Jersey 
with her ' James ' (where she did well, but died in a couple of 
years, poor little soul!), we were glad to hear of Helen again. 
Helen came, a glad sight of her kind; to my eye nothing was 
wrong in her, but to another better observer (though in strict si- 
lence towards me) much, much! Accordingly before long strange 
faults (even theft, to appearance) began to peer out; and, after 
perhaps four or five months, came the catastrophe described be- 
low! 

My darling took all pains with the wretched Helen; got her 
placed once, perhaps twice, candidly testifying to qualities and 
faults alike (drove off with her once in a cab, as I can still patheti- 
cally recollect having seen) : — but nothing could save Helen! She 
was once, as we beard, dragged from the river; did die, an out- 
cast, few months afterwards. Naivety and even geniality, — im- 
becility, obstinacy, anAgin. Her ' sayings,' as reported to me here, 
were beyond all Jest-Books, — as gold beyond pinchbeck. 

19 March, 1849, Cromwell. — A Third 'Edition got done (i.e. the 
.MS. Ac. copy of it) 'this morning.' — Printing haggles forward till 
October or after. Mrs. Buller's death ' week before.' 

To Mrs. Aitken, Dumfries. 

5 Cheyne Row: Tuesday night. May 1849 
My dear Jane, — Many thanks for your kind letter and ' dainties '; 
these I only realised to-day — the weather having been bad: and my 

1 G. H. Lewes's novel. 



'LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



61 



head not good, and no carriage turning up for me till to-day. I 
ate a little piece of cake so soon as I got it home, and pronounce it 
first-rate; the marmalade I have not yet broken into. 

For ourselves, we are all going on as much as usual: Mr. C. has 
not got reconciled to his ' interior,' nor I to my head, with which, 
indeed, I have had several more terrible bouts lately than ever in 
my life before, which is much to say! John is excessively kind to 
me on these occasions; has sat on his knees at my bedside for 
hours together, holding me down, and being sorry for me, which is 
just all that can be done in the way of alleviation. ' On earth the 
living have much to bear;' the difference is chiefly in the manner 
of bearing, and my manner of bearing is far from being the best. 

They would tell you of the final crash of my maid Helen, how, 
on our return from a visit to Captain Sterling,' she first would not 
open the door; and at last did open it, like a stage ghost very ill 
got up: blood spurting from her lips, her face whitened with chalk 
from the kitchen floor, her dark gown ditto, and wearing a smile 
of idiotic self-complacency. I thought Mr. 0. was going to kick 
his foot through her; when she tumbled down at his touch. If she 
had been his wife he certainly would have killed her on the spot; 
but his maid-of-all-work he felt could not be got rid of without his 
being hanged for her. The young woman whom Providence sent 
me 'quite promiscuously' within an hour of this consummation 
has hitherto given us the greatest satisfaction. She is far the most 
lovable servant I ever had; a gentle, pretty, sweet looking crea- 
ture, with innocent winning ways; a very fair worker too, clean, 
orderly, and ' up to her business.' 2 My only fear about her is that 
being only four-and twenty, and calculated to produce an impres- 
sion on the other sex, she may weary of single service; unless in- 
deed she can get up a sentiment for the butcher's man, who is 
already her devoted admirer; but ' he is so desperately ugly.' 

Meanwhile, I have been busy, off and on, for a great many 
weeks in pasting a screen with four leaves, live feet high, all over 
Willi prints. It will be a charming ' work of art ' when finished, 
but of that there is no near prospect. The prints are most of them 
very small, and it takes so much pondering to find how to scatter 
them about to the best advantage. 3 What else I have been doing 
it were hard to tell. I read very little nowadays; not that my eyes 
• are failed the least in the world, bat that books have ceased to take 
any hold on me; and as for sewing, you know that ' being an only 
child, I never wished to sew.' Still, I have some inevitable work 
in that line, as, even if I felt rich enough to have the 'family 
needlework' done by others, I don't know where to find others to 
do it for money, without bothering me with their stupidity worse 
than if I did it myself. But the great business of life for a woman 
like me in this place is an eternal writing of little unavoidable 
notes. It falls upon me to answer all the invitations, and make 
lying excuses world without end; so that I sometimes look back 
with the tear in my eye to the time when we were not celebrated, 
and were left to provide our own dinners as we could. A Freuch 
poet dying of hunger, in a novel, calls, ' Oh, Glory, give me 
bread!' I would call to Glory often enough, 'Give me repose!' 
only that I know beforehand my sole response from Glory would 
be, ' Don't you wish you may get it? ' 

And now, dear, the sun is shining — has actually ' taken a notion' 
of shining for the first time these many days: and I have need to 
walk, having been shut up lately till I feel quite moulting. And 
so I must out into space. 

Love to your husband and all the rest. It would be pretty of 
you to write to me sometimes; for I am always 

Very affectionately yours, 

Jane W. Carlyt.e. 



LETTEIi 110. 

Nothing in the my of printing, or nothing in the least considera- 
ble, had come from me since 'Cromwell;' but much was ferment- 
ing in me, in very painful ways, during four years of silence. 
Irish Repeal, Paraclete, McHale, Irish Industrial Regiments, news- 
paper articles on such, &c, &c, — trifling growls, words idly flung 
away. In the fourth or third year especially, in the revolutionary 
1848. matters had got to a kind of boiling pitch with me, and I 
was becoming very wretched for want of a voice. Much MS. was 
accumulating on me, with which I did not know what in the world 
to do. Nigger question (end of 1849) did get out, and the rest, 
vividly enough, as Latter-Day Pamphlets (next spring)! Mean- 
while, all being dark and dumb, I had decided on a six-weeks' 
visit to Ireland (Duffy, &c. much pressing me). Record of the 
tour, written slapdash after my return, is among the worthless MSS. 
here. 4 Emerson had now left England seven or eight months. 



1 February 1849. 

2 Ttiis must have been Elizabeth Sprague, from Exeter, a high-going, shin- 
ing kind of damsel, who did very well for about two years; but then, like 
most of the genus, went away, and disappeared. What a province of the 
' il< imesticities ' that is at present! Anarchic exceedingly; the funnel-neck of 
all our anarchies. 

3 Stands here to this day, the beautifullest and cleverest screen I have ever 
seen. How strange, how mournfully affecting to me now! 

* These Notes were given by Mr. Carlyle to a friend, from whom they passed 
into the hands of Messrs. Sampson Low & Co., and were published by that 
firm in the spring of 1882.— J. A. F. 



To T. Carlyle, Post Office, Dublin. 

Addiscombe: Sunday night, July 2. 1849. 

Well! it is a consolation of a sort that I cannot figure you more 
cold and lonely and comfortless there at sea than myself has been 
on land, even amidst ' the splendid blandishments' of Addiscombe." 
When I could not distinguish your white hat any longer I went 
home, and sat down to cry a fittle; but Elizabeth put a stop to 
that by coming in with — your plaid over her arm! and expressing 
her surprise that master hadn't taken it. The plaid forgotten, and 
the clay so cold! For one frantic moment I was for running back 
to the pier, and plunging into the water on my own basis, and 
swimming after you with the plaid in my mouth; but a very little 
reflection turned me from this course, and instead I proceeded to 
the kitchen, and silently boiled my strawberries, like a practical 
woman. Then I stowed away some of the valuables, and dressed 
myself; and, no one having come for my portmanteau, I took it 
with me in the.omnibus to the top of Sloane Street, where I had it 
and myself transferred to a cab, for greater dignity's sake! I was 
at Bath House five minutes before twelve, shivering with cold, ex- 
cessively low, and so vexed about the plaid! But 'no sympathy 
there, thank God!' — ' wits ' enough, if that could have helped me. 
' Vou would have the sense to wrap yourself in a sail if you were 
cold,' or 'Depend upon it, you would seize on the rugs of all the 
other passengers' beds. At all events, you had promised to stay 
with them in Scotland, and that would quite set you up if you had 
taken cold ! ' Clearly, I must ' come out of that ' if I were going to 
do any good; and I did, to appearance; but all day I was fancying 
you shivering, like myself. We came here in the open carriage, 
having picked up Miss Farrar and Blanche. And here there was 
neither fire nor sun to warm one. We were taken to the dairy to 
lunch on cold milk and bread from the cold stone tables; and then 
to the hay-field to sit on cold haycocks; and a very large cold pad- 
dock ' jumped up my leg, good God! and 'it was a bad joy!' 
The dinner, at six, put me a little to rights; and I felt still better 
when we had put a lucifer to some sticks in the grate. At eleven 
we went to bed; 'and the eveninc and the morning were the first 
day!' 

To-day, Lord Bath and Bingham Mildmay arrived to breakfast; 
Milnes and Poodle an hour later. It has been a warm, fresh-blow- 
ing day, and spent almost entirely out of doors, silting about the 
swing, tumbling amongst tin- hay, walking and driving till eight, 
when we dined. And after that, very youthful and uproarious 
sports till twelve! I have written this much since coming up to 
bed. There is no more paper in my book; so I will now go to bed, 
and finish at Chelsea. I hope it has been as warm on the sea. 

Blanche has confided to me all the secrets of her heart — her 

ideas about her father and mother and sisters and lovers — and 
wishes me to save her soul! 

We are to dine here before starting, and if I do not send my letter 
till we get to London, there may be none at the post-office 2 when 
you first call: and that would be vexatious. But there is no time 
or composure here by day for writing, so this must go as it is. 

We have been in the Archbishop's grounds for three hours. The 
men are all gone back to town, except Lord Bath, who is at this 
moment singing with Blanche under my window, distracting me 
worse than a barrel-organ. Good Heavens! What tearing spirits 
everybody is in! 

The note from Davis 3 came before I left. I did not leave my 
address, so I don't know what others may have come; one to you 
from Neuberg I left behind. I ought to acknowledge with thank- 
fulness that I have been less sick since I came. Oh, dear, I wish I 
heard of your safe delivery out of that ship! 

Ever yours, 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 111 

To T. Carlyle, Imperial Hotel, Dublin, Ireland. 

Chelsea : Thursday, July 5, 1849. 

I am so glad of your letter this morning! alter Miss Wynn's non- 
sensical preparation. I could not feel at all sure. It sounds bad 
enough, but it might have been worse: 'kept at sea double the 
time,' and short of provisions; ' — that would have been a go! 

I am very busy to-day, having written to Mr. Neuberg that the 
last wild goose will alight at him on Monday, 4 and having a world 
of things to do in the meantime. And so I must be brief; better 
perhaps I let alone writing altogether, but then you might be 
' vaixed.' Hitherto my time has been chiefly taken up by people. 
Anthony Sterling came while I was at tea, and presently after, 
Masson and Mr. Russell 5 from Edinburgh; each of these gentlemen 
drank four cups of tea! I talked a great deal, having all the re- 
sponsibility to myself, and 'made so many wits' 6 for them that 
Anthony boiled off at nine, and the others stayed till eleven, evi- 
dently quite charmed with me — so differently do ' wits ' act upon 



1 Scotch for frog. 3 In Dublin. 

3 One of Robson's printers; did the 'Lists, 1 &c, in CrvmweU; a very supe- 
rior kind of man 

* Neuberg. with his sister, then in Nottingham; my poor pilgrim on the road 
thither, as her first stage. 

6 Son of surgery protessor, ended very tragically long after. 

Bolte's phrase. 



62 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



different characters! Yesterday I rose with a headache, the penalty 
of all that cleverness; but cold water and coffee staved it off. 

Having made an inventory of the plate, and packed it to be sent 
to Bath House, 1 went out and transacted a variety of small affairs: 
dined veryslightl}' in a confectioner's shop — Blanche and Miss Par- 
rar having insisted on coming to tea with me at five o'clock! — and 
was home just in time to receive them. 

No such ' everlasting friendship ' lias been sworn to me these 
thirty years as this of Blanche's! She flings herself on my neck, 
begs me to call her Blanche, says with tears in her eyes, ' Oh! does 
not everyone love VVm?' protests that she 'would like to stay with 
me for ever;' and in fact embarrasses me considerably with a sort 
of thing I have been quite out of these nutnyyears. While we were 
at tea (and these girls too had each four cups! with cakes and bread- 
and-butter in proportion), up drove Lady Ashburton, which was 
great fun for all parties. She was in ' tearing spirits,' and so were 
we by that time; and the racket that followed for the next hour 
and half was what Forster 1 might have called 'stupendous! Great 
God!' She said my picture was the horridest thing she had ever 
seen, 'like, but so disagreeably like, exactly reminding one of a 

poor old starved rabbit ! ' I suppose she has criticised if to N , 

for he has sent to beg I will give ' one more ' sitting; very incon- 
venient just now. but I promised to go to-morrow. Lord A. was to 
return last night, feeling a return of his gout, and wishing to be 
near Fergusson. My party dismissed in good time. Lady A. went 
at eight ' to dress for a party at Lady Waldegrave's ; ' the girls about 
nine, ' to dress for a ball at' Lady Wilton's.' I walked to the cab- 
stand with them; — devoutly imagined to go on and ask for Mrs. 
Chorley, but was too tiled; so I read the new ' Copperfield,' being 
up to nothing else, and w 7 ent to bed between ten and eleven. Had 
again talked too much for sleep, and again rose with a headache, 
which again yielded to cold water and ' determination of character.' 

God bless you ever. 

Yours, 

Jane C. 

LETTER 112. 
To T. Carlyle, at Qalway. 

Benrydden: Friday, July 20, 1849. 

Oh, my dear, I have been ' packed ! ' The Doctor proposed to 
' pack ' me for courtesy, and I, for curiosity, accepted. So at six in 
the morning, just when I had fallen into sound sleep, I was roused 
by a bath-woman coming to my bedside, in a huge white flannel 
gown, and bidding me turn out. I got on to the floor in a very be- 
wildered state, and she proceeded to double back one half of my 
bed clothes and feather-bed, spread a pair of blankets on the 
mattress, then a sheet wrung out of cold water; then bade me 
strip and lie down. I lay down, and she swathed me with the 
wet sheet like a mummy; then swathed me with the blankets, 
my arms pinioned down, exactly, in fact, like a mummy; then 
rolled back the feather lied and' original bed-clothes on the top 
of mo, leaving out the head ; and so left me, for an hour, to go mad 
at my leisure! I bad no sooner fairly realised my situation of being 
bound hand and foot, under a heap of things, than I felt quite 
frantic, cursed my foolish curiosity, and madehorrid efforts to re- 
lease myself; thought of rolling to the bell, and ringing it with my 
teeth, but could not shake off the feather-bed; did ultimately get 
one of my hands turned round, and was thankful for even that 
change of posture. Dr. Nicol says the bath-woman should have 
stayed with me (.luring the first ' pack,' and put a wet cloth on my 
head, that it was the blood being sent to my head that 'caused all 
this wildness.' Whatever it was, I would 'not undergo Hie thing 
again for a hundred guineas. When the bath-woman came back at 
seven. I ordered her to take me out instantly. 'But I lie doctor?' 
The doctor, 1 told her, had no business with me, I was not a patient. 
' Oh! then you have only been packed for toon, have you?' ' Yes; 
and very bad fun!' So she filled a slipper-bath to "put me to 
rights,' and I plunged into that so soou as I was set loose, and she 
splashed pitcher after pitcher full of water on my head. And this 
shall be the last of my water-curing, for the present. I feel quite 
shattered still, with an incipient headache, and am wishing that 
Forster would come, and take us back to Rawdon. 

I suppose Forster has sent you a Bradford paper containing the 
report ofourmeeling for- Roman Liberty.' Itwentoff very success- 
fully as a meeting; hut did not bring in to Forster all the 'virtue's own 
reward ' he anticipated, and he was out of humour for twenty-four 
hours after. In fact, the Bradford gentlemen on the platform were 
like Bess Stodart's legs, ' no great things.' But the Bradford men, 
filling the hall to suffocation, were a sight to see! to cry over, 'if 
one liked' such anient, earnest, half-intelligent, half bewildered 
countenance, as made me, for the time being, almost into a friend 
of the species and advocate for fusion debiens." And 1 must tell 
you ' I aye thocht meikle o' you'.' but that night I 'thocht mair o' 
you than eve.' 3 A man of the people mounted the platform, and 
spoke;— a youngish, intelligent-looking man, who alone, of all the 
speakers, seemed to understand the question, and to have feelings 
as well as notions about it. He spoke with a heart-eloquence that 

■John, of the Examiner, &c. &c. - The St. Simonian recipe. 

3 John Brown's widow (of her murdered husband i to Claverhouse's soldiers. 



' left me warm.' I never was more affected by public speaking. 
When he ceased I did not throw myself on his neck, and swear 
everlasting friendship; but, I assure you, it was in putting con- 
straint on myself that I merely started to my feet, and shook bauds 
with him. Then 'a sudden thought ' struck me: this man would 
like to know you; I would give him my address in London. I 
borrowed a pencil and piece of paper, and handed him my address. 
When he looked at it, he started as if I had sent a bullet into him 
— caught my hand again, almost squeezed it to 'immortal smash,' 
and said, 'Oh, it is your husband! Mr. Carlyle has been my 
teacher and master! 1 have owed everything to him for years and 
years!' I felt it a credit, to you really to have had a hand in turn- 
ing out this man; — was prouder of that heart-tribute to your genius 
than any amount of reviewer-praises, or aristocratic invitations to 
dinner. Forster had him to breakfast next morning. I shall have 
plenty of things to tell you when we meet at leisure, if I can only 
keep them in mind; but in this wandering Jew life I feel no time 
on hand, even forgoing into particulars. 

To-day I am pretty well finished off, for all practical purposes, 
by that confounded pack, My head is getting every moment hot- 
ter and heavier: and the best I can do is to get out on the hillside, 
and think of nothing! Lucas's 1 father and sister are here: genteel 
Quakerly people — very lean. 

After Monday, address to Auchtertool Manse, Kirkcaldy. I wish 
to heaven I were fairly there. I could almost lose heart, and turn, 
and go back to Loudon; but I will go: as I used to say when a 
little child, and they asked if anything was too hard for me, 'Me 
can do what me's bill.' The difficulty is still chiefly to bid my- 
self — and I have bid myself go to Scotland, Mrs. Paulet is asleep 
on a sofa beside me, so young and pretty and happy-looking; I 
wonder at her. 

God bless you, dear. When I have 'some reasonably good leis- 
ure "-'again, I will write you better letters; and more legible ones 
when I get a decent pen. If you saw the stump I am writing with, 
you would be filled wdth admiration of my superiority to circum- 
stances. God bless you! AH to be said worth the saying lies in 
that. Your affectionate 

Jane W. C. 

LETTER 113. 

Of Irish journey, summer 1849, I think there is the rough jotting 3 
hastily done after my return home. In defect of that, or in supple- 
ment to that, here are some dates: 

August 6, 7. — Miserable puddle of a night; disembarked at Glas- 
gow; ditto day there, and second night with David Hope — last time 
I saw him. My Jane at Auchtertool (manse, with cousin). I run 
for Seotsluig and its shelter first. Remember Ecclefechan station 
and my parting with W. E. Forster there. 

August 27. — Through Kirkcaldy or Auchtertool for some days, we 
(Jane's last and probably first time) arrive at Linlathen, where I 
leave her intending for Haddington. Three days with the Donald- 
sous (three old ladies, dear friends of Dr. Welsh's family in early 
days), thence to Scotsbrig, and set out with Faric to Perth, intend- 
ing for Glen Truin (Spey side) and the Ashburtons. There about 
a fortnight. Crowded, gypsy existence; everywhere chaos, and 
rest fled whither? Towards Scotsbrig and way home, September 
14 at Edinbr gh. See Jeffrey drearily, mournfully, for the last 
time (next spring he died). Not till last week of September get 
home, my poor, heavy-laden Jane, from Liverpool a few days be- 
fore, waiting for me with her sad but welcome face — Aydemi! 
— towards what a three months of exclusion had we treated our- 
selves t Physically and spiritually don't remember to have ever suf- 
fered more. I had never any health for touring. I should have 
stayed at home had not, indeed, my ' home' been London, with its 
summer torments! 'Latter-Day Pamphlets' now close ahead.— 
T. C. 

To T. Carlyle (Galway, Sligo; had fallowed me to) Scotsbrig. 

* Haddington: Thursday morning, July 26, 1849. 

My dear dear. — I wrote you a long, very loug, letter last night at 
midnight from this same place. But this morning, instead of put- 
ting it in the post-office, I have torn it up. You may fancy what 
sort of a letter, ' all about feelings (as Lady A. would say), an excit- 
able character like me would write in such circumstances, after a 
long railway journey, and a three hours' pilgrimage all up and down, 
and across and round about Haddington. And you can also un- 
derstand how, after some hours of sleep, I should have reacted 
against my last night's self, and thought all that steam best gathered 
back into the vale of silence. I have now only time to write the 
briefest of notes; but a blessing from here I must send you; to no 
other mortal would I, or indeed could I, write from this place at 
this moment; but it comes natural to me to direct a letter to you 
here, and that is still something, is it not? 

I will give you all my news so soon as I have slept a night at 
Auchtertool. I expect Walter and Jeannie will meet me at the 
station in Edinburgh, where I shall be at a quarter after twelve. I 

1 Catholic editor, Irish M.P., poor soul! 
- Cromwell. 9 Seep. 61. 

4 Mrs. ( larlyle had gone to Haddington for the lirst time since her marriage 
twenty-three years before. — J. A. F. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



63 



am not too much tired ; my journey has been made as easy for me 
as possible. From Rawddn to Morpeth on Tuesday, William Ed- 
ward most kindly accompanying me there, and seeing me off next 
day. ' I looked so horribly helpless,' he said, ' that he could not 
reconcile it to his conscience to leave me a chance at losing my- 
self.' 

I was wandering about till after dark last night, and out again 
this morning at six; but I must leave all particulars till a more lei- 
sure moment, and till my heart is calmer than at present. I am so 
glad I came here on this incognito principle. It is the only way in 
which I could have got any good of the dear old place. God bless 
it! How changed it is, and how changed am I ! But enough just 
now. 

Ever your affectionate, 

Jeaknte Welsit. 

' Oh ! what a letter, what a letter, to read again now! (May 27, 
1869.) 

Much Ado about Nothing. 

This is a very interesting little narrative, discovered by me the 
other day ; I had never heard of it before. The ' Forster ' mentioned 
in it is William Edward Forster, now M.P. for Bradford, conspicu- 
ous in various, to me, rather questionable ways — Nigger-Emanci- 
pator, Radical Patriot, &c, &c. ; at that timean enthusiastic young 
* Wet-t^uaker ' (had been introduced to me by Sterling), full of 
cheery talk and speculation, and well liked by both of us till then. 
I was in Ireland, travelling about, mainly with Duffy (so far as 
not alone) iu those weeks. Forster ou quitting her at Morpeth (as 
mentioned within) shot off for Ireland, and in the very nick of the 
moment, the next Sunday morning, intersected Duffy and me at 
Castlebar (Westport, south-west region) just iu the act of starting 
northward; sprang upon the car along with us, and was of the party 
till it ended (at Ecclefechan, through Derry and Glasgow, Forster's 
and my part of it), after which I have seen very little of him, nor 
did she more. — T. C. August 3, 1866. 

On Tuesday, July 21, 1819, I left Rawdon ' after breakfast, and 
at five of the afternoon reached Morpeth, where I had decided to 
pass the night. William Forster escorted me thus far, and stayed 
to start me by the two o'clock train next day, out of purest 
charity, having adopted Donovan's 2 theory of me, that I am 
wholly without observing faculty, with large reflectiveness turned 
inward; a sort of woman, that, ill-adapted for travelling by railway 
alone, with two boxes, a writing-case and carpet bag. Anyhow, 
I was much the better of such a cheerful companion to stave off 
the nervousness about Haddington, not to speak of the material 
comforts — a rousing tire, brandy-negus, &c. — which he ordered for 
me at the inn, and which I should not have had the audacity to 
order ou my own basis. 

After a modest dinner of chops and cherry -tart, we walked by 
the river-side in a drizzling rain (that was at my suggestion); then 
back to the ' Phoenix' for tea, chess, and speculative talk till mid- 
night; when I went to bed, expecting no sleep to speak of. and of 
course slept unusually well; for the surest way to get a thing in 
this life is to be prepared for doing without it, to the exclusion 
even of hope. 

Next morning was bright as diamonds, and we walked all about 
the town and neighbouring heights; where, rendered unusually 
comnunicative by our isolated position, I informed William Ed- 
ward that my maternal grandmother was ' descended from a gang 
of gipsies;' was in fact grand-niece to Matthew Baillie who "suf- 
fered -at Lanark,' that is to say was hanged there. A genealogical 
fact, Forster said, which made me at last intelligible for him, 'a 
cross betwixt John Knox and a gipsy, how that explained all! ' By 
the way, my uncle has told me since I came here that the wife of 
that Matthew Baillie, Margaret Euston by name, was the original 
of Sir W. Scott's ' Meg Merrilies.' Matthew himself was the last of 
gipsies; could steal a horse from under the owner if he liked, but 
left always the saddle and bridle; a thorough gentleman iu his way 
and six feet four in stature' 

But to go back to Morpeth : we again dined at the ' Phoenix ' ; then 
Forster put me into my carriage, and my luggage into the van, and 
I was shot off towards Scotland, while himself took train for Ire- 
land. 

From Morpeth to Haddington is a journey of only four hours; 
again ' the wished-for come too late! ' — rapidest travelling to Scot- 
laud now, and no home there any more! The first locality I recog- 
nised was the Peer Bridge; I had been there once before, a little 
child, in a post chaise with my father; he had held his arm round 
me while I looked down the ravine. It was my first sight of the 
picturesque that. I recognised the place even in passing it at rail- 
way speed, after all these long, long years. 

At the Dunbar station an old lady in widow's dress, and a young 
one, her daughter, got into the carriage, which I had had so far all 
to myself; a man in yeomanry uniform waiting to see them off. 
' Ye'll maybe come and see us the morn's nicht? ' said the younger 
lady from the carriage. ' What for did ye no come to the ball? ' 
answered the yeoman, with a look ' to split a pitcher.' The young 



1 Near Bradford. Yorkshire. 

2 A quack physiognomist, &c., of the time. 



lady tchick-tchicked, and looked deprecatingly, and tried again and 
again to enchain conversation; but to everything she said came the 
same answer — ' What for did ye no come to the ball?' The poor 
young lady then tried holding her tongue; her lover (only her lover 
would have used her so brutally) did the same; but rested his chin 
ou the carriage window to scowl at her with more convenience. 
The interest was rising; but one could see who of them would 
speak first. 'Ob! 'broke out the young lady, 'I'm just mourn- 
ing! ' 'What for?' ' Oh, just that ball 1 ' ' What for then did ye 
no come?' growled the repeating decimal; ' I waited an oor for 
ye! ' and he got his upper lip over the strap of his cap and champed 
it — like a horse! Squeal went the engine; we were off; the young 
lady 'just mourned' for a minute or two, then fell !o talking with 
her mother. For me, I reflected how ' the feelings were just the 
same there as here.' ' and the Devil everywhere busy! Before the 
ladies cot out at Drem I had identified the pale, old. shrivelled 
widow with a buxom, bright-eyed, rosy Mrs. Frank Sheriff of my 
time. The daughter had not only grown up but got herself born 
in the interval. What chiefly struck me, however — indeed con- 
founded me — was to be stared at by Mrs. Sheriff as a stranger or 
even foreigner! for, when I asked her some question about the road, 
she answered with that compassionate distinctness which one puts 
on with only foreigners or idiots. I began to think my precautions 
for keeping incognito iu my native place might turn out to have 
been superfluous. One of these precautions had the foolishest little 
consequence. In leaving London, I had written the addresses for 
my luggage on the backs of other people's visiting-cards, ' without 
respect of persons' — a stupid practice win □ one thinks of it! — but 
at Morpeth I removed three of the cards, leaving one to the carpet- 
bag, carpet-bags being so CQnfoundable. I was at the pains, how- 
ever, to rub off my own name from that card, which, for the rest, 
happened to be Mrs. Humphrey Si. John Mildmay's. Well, at 
Longniddry, where I had to wait some fifteen minutes for the 
cross-train to Haddington, 'there came lo pass ' a porter! who 
helped me with my things, and would not leave off helping me, 
quite teased me iu fact with delicate attentions. At last lie made 
me a low bow and said he was ' not aware that any of the family 
were in this quarter.' I believe I answered. 'Quite well, I thank 
you;' fori was getting every instant more excited with my circum- 
stances. He shut the carriage door on me, then opened it again 
and said, with another low bow, ' Excuse me, ma'am; but I was iu 
the service of the brother of Mr. Humphrey St. John Mildmny.' I 
am positive as to my answer this time, that it was, ' Oh, thank you! 
— no, I am quite another person! ' 

A few minutes more and I was at the Haddington station, where 
I looked out timidly, then more boldly, as my senses took in the 
utter strangeness of the scene; and luckily Ihad ' the cares of lug- 
gage ' to keep down sentiment for the moment. No vehicle wasiu 
wailing but a dusty little omnibus, licensed to carry any number, 
it seemed; for, on remarking there was no seat for me, I was told 
by all the insides in a breath, 'Never heed! come in! that makes 
no difference!' And so I was trundled to the 'George Inn,' 
where a landlord and waiter, both strangers to me, and looking 
half-asleep, showed me to the best room on the first floor, a large, 
old-fashioned, three-windowed room, looking out on the Fore 
Street, and. without having spoken one word, shut the door on me, 
and there 1 was at the end of it! Actually in the 'George Inn,' 
Haddington, alone, amidst the silence of death! 

I sat down quite composedly at a window, and looked up the 
street towards our old house. It was the same street, the same 
houses; but so silent, dead petrified ! It looked the old place just 
as I had seeu it at Chelsea in my dreams, only more dream-like! 
Having exhausted that outlook, I rang my bell, and told the silent 
landlord to bring tea and take order about my bedroom. The tea 
swallowed down, I notified my wish to view ' the old church there,' 
and the keeper of the keys was immediatelj r fetched me. In my 
part of Stranger in search of the Picturesque. I let myself be shown 
the way which I knew every inch of, shown ' the school-house ' 
where myself had been Dux, ' the play-ground,' ' the boolin' green,' 
and so ou to the church gate; which, so soon as my guide had 
unlocked lor me, I told him he might wait, that I needed him no 
further. 

The churchyard hail become very full of graves; within the ruin 
were two new smartly got-up tombs. His 2 looked old, old; was 
surrounded by nettles: the inscription all over moss, except two 
lines which had been quite recently cleared — by whom? Who had 
been there before me. still caring for his tomb after twenty-nine 
years? The old ruin knew, and could not tell me. That place felt 
the very centre of eternal silence — silence and sadness world with- 
out end 1 When I returned, the sexton, or whatever he was. asked, 
' Would 1 not walk through the church? ' I said ' Yes,' and he led 
the way, but without playing the cicerone any more: he had become 
pretty sure there was no need. Our pew looked to have never been 
new-lined since we occupied it: the green cloth was become all but 
white from age! I looked at it in the dim twilight till I almost 
fancied I saw my beautiful mother in her old comer, and myself, a 
bright looking girl, in the other! It was time to 'come out or 
that! ' Meaning to return to the churchyard next morning, to cleaf 
the moss from the inscription, I asked my conductor where he lived 



My mother, on reading Wilhelm Meister. 



2 Her father's. 



64 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



— with his key. ' Next door to the house that was Dr. Welsh's ' he 
answered, with a sharp glance at my face; then added gently, 
'Excuse me, me'm, for mentioning that, but the minute I set eyes 
on ye at the "George," I jaloosed it was her we all looked after 
whenever she went up or down .' ' You won't tell of me? ' I said, 
crying, like a child caught stealing apples; and gave him half-a- 
crown to keep my secret, and open the gate fur me at eight next 
morning. Then, turning tip the waterside by myself, I made the 
circuit of the llaugh, Dodds's Gardens and Babbie's Butts, the eus- 
tomary evening walk in my teens; and except that it was perfectly 
solitary (in the whole round I met just two little children walking 
hand in hand, like the Babes of the Wood) the whole thing looked 
exactly as I left it twenty-three years back; the very puddles made 
by the last rain I felt to have slipped over before. But where were 
all the living beings one used to meet? What could have come to 
the place to strike it so dead? I have been since answered — the 
railway had come to it, and ruined it. At all rates ' it must, have 
taken a great deal to make a place so dull as that!' Leaving the 
lanes, I now went boldly through the streets, the thick black veil, 
put on for the occasion, thrown back; I was getting confident that 
I might have ridden like the Lady Godiva through Haddington, 
with impunity, so far as recognition went. I looked through the 
sparred door of our old coach-house, which seemed to be vacant; 
the house itself I left over till morning, when its occupants should 
be asleep. Passing a cooper's shop, which I had once had the run 
of, I stept in aud bought two little quaighs; then in the character 
of travelling Englishwoman, suddenly seized with an unaccountable 
passion for wooden dishes, I questioned the cooper as to the past 
and present of his town. He was the very man for me, being 
ready to talk the tongue small in his head about his town's-folks — ■ 
men, women, aud children of them, lie told me, amongst other 
interesting things. ' Doctor Welsh's death was the sorest loss ever 
came to the place.' that myself ' went away into England and — died 
there!' adding a handsome enough tribute to my memory. 'Yes! 
Miss Welsh! he remembered her famously, used to think her the 
tastiest young lady in the whole place; but she was very — not just 
to call proud — very reserved in her company.' In leaving this man 
I felt more than ever like 1113' own ghost; if I had been walking 
after my death aud Initial, there could not, I think, have been any 
material difference in my speculations. 

My next visit was to the front gate of Sunny Bank, where I stood 
some minutes, looking up at the beautifully quiet house; not unlike 
the ' outcast. Peri ' done into prose. How would my old godmother 
aud the others have looked, 1 wondered, had they known who was 
there so near them? I longed to go in and kiss them once more, 
but positively dared not; 1 felt that their demonstrations of affec- 
tion would break me down into a torrent of tears, which there was 
no time for; so I contented myself with kissing the gate (?) and 
returned to my inn, it being now near dark. Surely it was the 
silentest inn on the planet! not a living being, male or female, to 
be seen in it except when I rang my bell, and then the landlord or 
waiter (both old men) did my bidding promptly and silently, and 
vanished again into space. On my re-entrance I rang for candles, 
aud for a glass of sherr} - and hot water; my feet had been wetted 
amongst the long grass of the churchyard, and I felt to be taking 
cold; so I made myself negus as an antidote, and they say I am not 
a practical woman! Then it struck me I would write to Mr. Car- 
lyle one more letter from the old place, after so much come and 
gone. Accordingly I wrote till the town clock (the first familiar 
voice I had heard) struck eleven, then twelve, and, near one, I 
wrote the Irish address on my letter aud finally put myself to bed 
— in the ' George Inn ' of Haddington, good God! I thought it too 
strange and mournful a position for ever falling asleep in; never- 
theless I slept in the first instance, for I was 'a-weary, a-weary,' 
body and soul of me! But, alas! the only noise I was to hear in 
Haddington 'transpired' exactly at the wrong moment; before I 
bad slept one hour I was awoke by — an explosion of cats! The 
rest of that night 1 spent betwixt sleeping and waking, in night- 
mare efforts to •sort up my thoughts.' At half after five I put my 
clothes on, aud began the business of the day by destroying in a 
moment of enthusiasm — for silence — the long ietter 'all about feel- 
ings 'which I had written the night before. Soon after six I was 
haunting our old house, while the present occupants still slept. I 
found the garden door locked, aud iron stanchions — my heavens! — 
on the porch and cellar windows, 'significative of much!' For the 
rest, there was a general need of paint and whitewash; in fact, the 
whole premise- had a bedimmed, melancholy look as of having 

' seen belter day-, ' 

It was difficult for me to realise to myself that, the people inside 
were only asleep, and not dead — dead since man} - years. Ah! one 
breathed freer in the churchyard, with the bright morning sunshine 
streaming down on il. than' near that, (so-called) habitation of the 
living! 1 went straight from one to the other. The gate was slill 
locked, for I was an hour before my time; so I made a dash at the 
wall, some seven feet high I should think, and dropt safe on the 
inside — a feat I should never have imagined to try in my actual 
phase, not even with a mad bull at my heels, if I had not trained 
myself to it. at a more elastic age. Godefroi Cavaignac's ' Quoi 
donc.je ne sttis pas mortf crossed my mind; but I had none of that 
feeling — moi — was morte enough I knew, whatever face I might 
put on it; only, what one has well learnt one never forgets. 



When I had scraped the moss out of the inscription as well as I 
could with the only thing in my dressing case at all suited to the 
purpose, namely his own. buttou-hook with the mother-of-pearl 
handle, I made a deliberate survey of the whole churchyard; and 
most of the names I had missed out of the sign-boards turned up 
for me once more on the tombstones. It was strange the feeling of 
almost glad recognition that came over me, in finding so many 
familiar figures out of my childhood and youth all gathered together 
in one place; but, still more interesting for me than these later 
graves were two that I remembered to have wept, little innocent 
tears over before I had a conception what real weeping meant — the 
grave of the little girl wdio was burnt to death, through drying her 
white muslin frock at the fire, and that of the young officer (Ruth- 
erford) who was shot in a duel. The oval tablet of white marble 
over the little girl's grave looked as bright and spotless as on the 
first da}' — as emblematic of the child existence it commemorated; 
it seemed to my somewhat excited imagination that the youthful- 
ness and innocence there buried had impregnated the marble to 
keep it. snow-white for ever! 

When the sexton came at eight to let me in, he found me ready 
to be let out. 'How in the world had I got in !' 'Over the 
wall!' ' No! surely I couldn't mean that ? ' 'Why not?' 'Lord's 
sake then,' cried the man in real admiration, 'there is no end to 
you!' He told me at parting, 'There is one man in this town, 
me'm, you might like to see, James Robertson, your father's old 
servant.' Our own old Jamie! he was waiter at 'The Star.' — Good 
gracious! — had returned to Haddington within the last year. ' Yes, 
indeed,' I said, 'he must be sent To me at " The George" an hour 
hence, and told only that a lady wanted him.' 

It was still but eight o'clock, so I should have time to look at 
Sunny Bank from the back gate, aud streamed off in that direction; 
but passing my dear old school-house, I observed the door a little 
ajar, walked in aud sat down in my old seat, to the manifest aston- 
ishment of a decent woman who was sweeping the floor. Ach 
Gott! our maps and geometrical figures had given place to texts 
from Scripture, and the foolishest half-penny pictures! It was be- 
come an Infant School! and a Miss Alexander was now teacher 

where Edward Irving and James Brown had taught. Miss A 

and her infants were not, it seemed, early risers, their school-room 
after eight o'clock was only being swept: it was at, seven of the 
morning that James Brown found me asleep then-, after two hours' 
hard study, asleep betwixt the leaves of the Great Atlas, like a 
keep lesson! but, ' things have been all going to the devil ever since 
the Reform Bill ' — as my uncle is always telling us. The woman 
interrupted her sweeping to inform nie amongst other thiugs that it 
was ' a most terrible place for dust,' that 'a deal was put into 
bairns now. which she dooted was waste mark,' that 'it was little 
one got by cleaning after them,' and ' if her husband bad his legs, 
they might have the school that liked.' Not. the vestige of a boy or 
even of a girl was to be seen about the Grammar School either. 
That school, I afterwards heard from Jamie, ' had gone to just per- 
fect nonsense.' ' There was a master (one White), but no scholars.' 
' How is that?' Iasked; 'are there no children here any longer?' 
' Why, it's not altogether the want o' children,' said Jamie with his 
queer old s?nudge of inarticulate fun; ' but the new master is rather 
severe — broke the jawbone of a wee boy. they tell me; but indeed 
the whole place is sore gone down.' I should think so! But I am 
not got to Jamie yet, another meeting came off before that one. 

Sunny Bank looked even lovelier ' in the light of a new morning' 
than it had done in the evening dusk. A hedge of red roses in full 
blow extended now from the house to the gate; and I thought I 
might go in and gather one without evoking any — beast. Once in- 
side the gate, I passed easily to the idea of proceeding as far as the 
back-door, just to ask the servant how they all were, and leave 
compliments without naming myself; the servants only would be 
astir so early. Well! when I had knocked at the door with my 
finger, 'sharp but mannerly,' it was opened by a tidy maid-servant, 
exhibiting no more surprise than if I had been the baker's boy! 

Strange, was it not, that anybody should be in a calm state of 
mind, while I was so full of emotions? Strange that the universe 
should pursue its own course without, reference to my presence in 
Haddington! 'Are your ladies quite well? ' I asked nevertheless. 
' Miss Jess and Miss Catherine are quite well; Miss Donaldson 
rather complaining. You are aware, me'm. that Mr. Donaldson is 
dead.' 'Oh, dear, yes!' I said, thinking she meant Alexander. 
' At what hour do your ladies get up? ' ' They are up, me'm, and 
done breakfast. Will you walk round to the front door? ' Good- 
ness gracious! should 1 ' walk round ' or not? My own nerves had 
got braced somewhat by the morning air; but their nerves! — how 
would the sight of me thus 'promiscuously' operate on them? 
' You had better go round and let me tell the ladies,' put in the ser- 
vant, as if in reply. to my cogitations; 'what name shall I say?' 
' None; I think perhaps my name would startle them more than my- 
self; — tell them some one they will be glad to see.' And so, flinging 
the responsibility on Providence, who is made for being fallen back 
upon in such dilemmas (Providence must have meant me to see 
them in raising them out of bed so betimes!), I did 'go round, 'with 
my heart mumping, 'like, like, like anything.' The maid-servant 
met me at the front door, and conducted me to the drawing-room; 
where was — nobody, but on a table lay a piece of black bordered 
note-paper which explained to me that it was Mr. Donaldson of 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



65 



Loudon -who was dead — the last brother — dead in these very days ! 
I wish I had not come in, but it was out of time now. The door 
opened and showed me Miss Catherine changed into an old woman, 
and showed Miss Catherine me changed into one of — a certain age! 
She remained at the door, motionless, speechless, and I couldn't 
rise off my chair — at least I didn't; but when I saw her eyes star- 
ing, ' like watch faces,' I said, ' Oh, Miss Catherine, don't be 
frightened at me! ' — and then she quite shrieked ' Jeannie! Jeannie! 
Jeaunie Welsh! my Jeannie! my Jeannie!' Oh, mercy! I shan't 
forget that scene in a hurry. I got her in my arms and kissed her 
into wits again; and then we both cried a little — naturally; both of 
us had had enough since we last met to cry for. I explained to her 
' how I was situated,' as Mr. C. would say, and that I was meaning 
to visit them after, like a Christian; and she found it all 'most 
wisely done, done like my own self.' Humph! poor Miss Cather- 
ine! it's little she knows of my own self, and perhaps the less the 
better! She told me about their brother's death, which had been 
sudden at the last. Supposing me still in London as usual, and 
that in London we hear of one another's deaths, they had been say- 
ing it was strange I did not write to them, and my godmother 
had remarked, 'It is not like her!' just while I was standing at 
their gate most likely, for it was 'the evening before, about dark,' 
they had been speaking of me.. 

But again the door opened and showed Miss Jess. Ach ! she had 
to be told who I was, and pretty loudly too; but when she did take 
in the immense fact, oh, my! if she didn't 'show feeling enough' 
(her own favourite expression of old). Poor Jess after all ! We 
used to think she showed even more feeling than she felt, and noth- 
ing came out on the present emergence to alter our opinion of her. 
But enough — the very old, it seems to me, should be admitted by 
favour to the privilege of the Dead — have ' no ill' spoken of them 
that can possibly be helped. 

My ' godmother ' was keeping her bed ' with rheumatism ' and 
grief. As I ' would really come back soon,' it was settled to leave 
her quiet. They offered me breakfast, it was still on the table, but 
'horrible was the thought' to me. It was all so solemn and dole- 
ful there that I should have heard every morsel going down 
my throat! besides, I was engaged to breakfast with myself at the 
' George.' So, with blessings for many days, I slipt away from 
them like a kuotless thread. 

My friend the cooper, espying me from his doorway on the road 
back, planted himself firmly in my path; ' if I would just compli- 
ment him with my name he would be terribly obliged; we had been 
uncommon comfortable together, and he must know what they 
called me! ' I told him, and he neither died on the spot nor went 
mad; he looked pleased, and asked how many children 1 had had. 
'None,' I told him. 'None?' in a tone of astonishment verging 
on horror. ' None at all? then what on earth had I been doing all 
this time?' 'Amusing myself,' I told him. He ran after me to 
beg 1 would give him a call on my return (I had spoken of return- 
ing) ' as he might be making something, belike, to send south with 
me, something small and of a fancy sort, liker myself than them I 
had bought.' 

Breakfast stood ready for me at the inn, and was discussed in 
five minutes. Then I wrote a note to Mr. C, a compromise be- 
twixt ' all about feelings ' and ' the new silent system of the prisons. 
Then I went to my bedroom to pack up. The chambermaid came 
to say a gentleman was asking for me. 'For me?' 'Yes; he 
asked for the lady stopping here ' (no influx of company at the 
' George ' it seemed). ' Did you see him? ' I asked, divining 
Jamie; ' are you sure it is a gentleman ?' 'I am sure of his being 
put on like one.' I flew down to my parlour and there was Jamie 
sure enough, Jamie to the life! and I threw my arms round his 
neck — that did I. He stood quite passive and quite pale, with 
great tears rolling down; it was minutes before he spoke, and then 
he said only, low under his breath, 'Mrs. — Carlyle!' So nice he 
looked, and hardly a day older, and really as like ' a gentleman ' as 
some lords; he had dressed himself in his Sunday clothes for the 
occasion, and they were capital good ones. ' And you knew me, 
Jamie, at first sight? ' I asked. ' Toot! we knew ye afore we seed 
ye.' ' Then you were told it was me? ' ' No; they told us just we 
was to speak to a lady at the " George," and I knew it was Mrs. 
Carlyle.' 'But how could you tell, dear Jamie?' 'Hoots! who 
else could it be? ' Dear, funniest of created Jamies ! While he 
was ostler at the ' Black Bull,' Edinburgh, ' one of them what-ye- 
call bagmen furgotted his patterns ' at Haddington, and he (Jamie) 
was 'sent to take them up; and falling in talk with him at the 
"Star," it came out there was no waiter, and so in that way,' said 
Jamie, ' we came back to the old place.' He told me all sorts of 
particulars ' more profitable to the soul of man ' than anything 1 
should have got out of Mr. Charteris in three years, never to say 
' three weeks.' But ' a waggon came in atween ten and eleven, 
and he must be stepping west.' 'He was glad to have seen me 
looking so ' (dropping his voice) ' stootish.' [I saw him from the 
omnibus, after unloading the waggon, in his workday clothes al- 
most on the very spot where, for a dozen years, he had helped me 
in and out of our carriage.] 

And now there only remained to pay my bill and await the om- 
nibus. I have that bill of 6s. 6d. in rny writing-case, and shall keep 
it all my days; not only as an eloquent memorial of human change, 
like grass from graves and all that sort of thing, but as the first 



inn-bill I ever in my life contracted and paid on my own basis. 
Another long look from the ' George Inn ' window, and then into 
the shabby little omnibus again, where the faces of a lady next me 
and a gentleman opposite me tormented my memory without re- 
sult. 

In the railway carriage which I selected an old gentleman had 
taken his seat, and I recognised him at once as Mr. Lea, the same 
who made the little obelisk which hangs in my bedroom at Chelsea. 
He had grown old like a golden pippin, merely crined, 1 with the 
bloom upon him. I laid my hand on his arm, turning away my 
face, and said : ' Thank God here is one person I feel no difficulty 
about!' 'I don't know you,' he said, in his old blunt way; 'who 
are you?' 'Guess!' 'Was it you who got over the churchyard 
wall this morning? I saw a stranger lady climb the wall, and I 
said to myself, that's Jeannie Welsh! no other woman would climb 
the wall instead of going in at the gate. Are you Jeannie Welsh? ' 
I owned the soft impeachment; then such shaking of hands, em- 
bracing even ! But so soon as things had calmed down a little be- 
tween us, Mr. Lea laid his hand on my shoulder and said, as if 
pursuing knowledge under difficulties, ' Now tell me, my dear, 
why did you get over the wall instead of just asking for the key? ' 
He spoke of William Ainsley's death; I said I had never known 
him, that he went to India before I could remember. ' Nonsense,' 
said Mr. Lea; ' not remember Wdliam Ainsley? Never knew Wil- 
liam Ainsley? What are you thinking of? Why, didn't he wrap 
you in a shawl and run away with you to our house the very day 
you were born, I believe? ' I said it might be very true, but that 
the circumstance had escaped my recollection. Mr. Lea was left at 
Lougniddry, where he came daily, he said, to bathe in the sea. 
What energy! 

While waiting there for the train from London, I saw again my 
lady and gentleman of the omnibus, and got their names from Mr. 
Lea. They were not people I had ever visited with, but I had 
been at school with them both. We passed and repassed one an- 
other without the slightest sign of recognition on their side. 
George Cunningham, too. was pacing the Longniddry platform, the 
boy of our school who never got into trouble, and never helped 
others out of it — a slow, bullet-headed boy, who said his lessons 
like an eight-day clock, and never looked young; now, on the 
wrong side of forty, it might be doubted if he would ever look old. 
He came up to me and shook hands, and asked me by name how I 
did, exactly as though we met on 'change every day of our lives. 
To be sure I had seen him once since we were at school together, 
had met him at Craik's some twelve years ago. Such as he was, 
we stood together till the train came up, and ' talked of geography, 
politics, and nature.' 

At Edinburgh Jeannie's - sweet little face looked wildly into the 
carriage for me, and next minute we were chirping and twittering 
together on the platform, whilst the eternal two boxes, writing- 
case, and carpet-bag were being once more brought into one focus. 
' Look, look, cousin ! ' said Jeannie, ' there are people who know 
you! ' And looking as I was bid, who but the pair who had ac- 
companied me from Haddington, with their heads laid together, 
and the eyes starting out of them nie-ward. The lady, the instant 
she saw 1 noticed tliem, sprang forward extending her hand; the 
husband, 'emboldened by her excellent example,' did the same; 
they were ' surprised.' ' delighted,' everything that could be wished; 
' had not had a conception of its being me till they saw me smil- 
ing.' ' Eh, sirs! ' said my mother's old nurse to her after a separa- 
tion of twenty years, ' there's no a featur o' ye left but just the bit 
smile! ' 

I will call for these Richardsons when I go back to Haddington; 
I like their hop-step-aud-jump over ceremony, their oblivion in the 
enthusiasm of the moment that we had ' belonged to different cir- 
cles ' (Haddington speaking). 

And now having brought myself to Edinburgh, and under the 
little protecting wing of Jeannie, I bid myself adieu and ' wave my 
lily hand.' I was back into the present! and it is only in 
connection with the past that I can get up a sentiment for myself. 
The present Mrs. Carlyle is — what shall I say? — detestable, upon 
my honor. 3 

Auchtertool Manse: Aug. 2. 



LETTER 114. 

Sunny Bank (now Tenterfield) is 'the Donaldsons' residence, a 
pleasant, most tranquil house and garden in the suburbs of Had- 
dington— to her always a quasi-maternal house. Glen Truin (pro- 
nounced Troon) is Lord Ashburton's deer-hunting station in Mac- 
pherson of Cluny's country, rented, twice over I think, at the easy 
rate of 1,000?. a season — intrinsic value, perhaps, from 50/. to 25?. 
Thither I had passed from Scotsbrig; saw my darling at Linlathen 
for a day or two in passing (she ill oft, I ditto — much out of sorts 
both of us); had there, too, a miserable enough hugger-mugger 
time. My own blame; none others' so much — saw that always. — 
T. C. 



1 I.e. shrunk. 

1 A Mazzini locution. 



3 Cousin from Liverpool (now Mrs. Chrystab. 



66 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



To T. Carlyle, at Glen Truin House. 

Sunuy Bank, Haddington : Sept. 5, 1849. 

It looks a month since we parted at Dundee! I have had so 
much of both motional and ' emotional culture ' since that evening. 
Qoot look did not follow me into the Orient 1 by any means. A 
headache followed me, and stuck by me till the Monday that I left 
Kirkcaldy; of heartache I will not speak; but there is no reason 
why I should be silent on the misfortune I happened one hour 
after my return to Fergus-dom; that might have happened to any- 
one, however little of an egoist. I had lain down on the black 
coffin-like sofa in my bedroom to try what rest, such as could be 
had under the circumstances, would do for my head, when I felt 
something like a blue-bottle creep inside my hand; shook it off, 
and, oh, my! the next instant I was on foot like 'a mad' — stung 
by a wasp! Miss Jessie got the sting out, and admired it through 
her glass, and applied, on my own advice, laudanum and honey ; 
but the pain went up to my shoulder and down to my side, and the 
swelling and inflammation spread so fast all up my arm, that Miss 
Jessie could hardly be hindered from running herself lor botii a 
doctor and a silversmith; the last to cut a ring that could not be 
got off; but it was my mother's little pebble ring, and I would not 
suffer it to be cut, and neither would I be at the cost of a doctor 
just yet. All that evening I suffered horribly, in silence, and all 
night 'the trophies of the wasp would not let me sleep,' not one 
wink. However, I went next day to Auchtertool with my hand in 
a poultice, being still determined to ' come out of that ' on Monday, 
and unwilling to go without saying farewell to my poor uncle, 
■whom it is likely enough I shall never see again. 

On Sunday night the pain was sufficiently abated to let me sleep. 
So I was up to leaving, according to programme, by the quarter- 
after-eight train. John and Jessie were up to give me breakfast, 
and see me off, and Mrs. Nixon gave me a nice little trunk to facili- 
tate my packing. They were really very kind, the poor Ferguses; 
but somehow or other they are radically uncomfortable people for 
us to be mixed up with, in spite of their 'good intentions.' 

I got to the Princes Street station a little before ten, and found 
on inquiry that I could have my luggage taken care of for me on 
paying the sum of sixpence for booking; so I left there everything 
but my writing-case, in which were my jewels and your manu- 
script; and with that I got into a cab, having bargained with the 
cabman for two shillings an hour (I tell you these details for your 
own guidance in case of your returning 'by Edinburgh), and drove 
to Adam Street to Betty. 2 

Of all the meetings I have had in Scotland, that was the most 
moving, as well as the happiest; was just all but a meeting betwixt 
mother and child after twenty years' separation. She was on her 
knees blackleading her grate, all in confusion, poor soul! her little 
carpet up, everything topsy-turvy, a domestic earthquake having 
been commenced that very morning in preparation for my coming. 
Miss Anne having kindly warned her that she might be 'all ready; ' 
but I was too early, and so found her all unready, only her heart as 
right as could be. Oh, dear me! how she does love me, that 
woman, and how good and pious-hearted she is! While I sat on 
her knee, with my arms about her neck, and she called me her 
'dear bairn,' and looked at me as if she would have made me wel- 
come to her 'skin,' I felt, as nearly as possible, perfectly happy — 
just fancy that! But I must not get into the details of my visit to 
her just now; my few days here are so tilled up, I have not yet 
seen half the people I wish to see. She gave me four biscuits 
wrapt in her best pocket-handkerchief, and promised to see me at 
my aunt's before I left in the evening; and then I jumped into my 
cab again, and proceeded to Clarence Street. 3 

A kind note, received at Kirkcaldy from Elizabeth, had prepared 
me for a rather warmer welcome than I had anticipated, but not 
for so warm a one as I got; it was a great comfort to me to be so 
received by my father's sisters, however unlike him. My heart was 
opened by their kindness to tell them that it was nothing but ap- 
prehension of their bothering me about my soul which had es- 
tranged me from them so entirely. Anne's reply, given with an 
arch look and tone, was very nice, ' Indeed, Jeanuie,"yc-u need not 
have been afraid of our setting ourselves to reform you ; it is plain 
enough that nothing short of Ood's own grace can do that, but I 
won't despair that a time may come, though I am not such a fool 
as to think that I can hasten it.' Anne went out with me. and we 
called for Mrs. George 4 — not at home; at the Stoddarts' — the lady 
in the country, John petrified-looking, either hardened into stone, 
or quite stunned at seeing me. I could not tell which. On our way 
to Mrs. Sterling's 5 we met her. and she flew into my arms in the 
open street, just as she would have done before writing 'Fanny 
Hervey.' I walked into Marshall the jeweller's, who knew me at 
once; and a Mrs. Watson, who met me on the bridge, shouted out 
Jeannie Welsh! But I will tell you all the rest afterwards. 

Miss Catherine was waiting for me with a carriage at the Had- 

1 Supra, Haddington is east. Mrs. Carlyle had returned thither to stay with 
the Donaldsons. 

- The old Haddington servant— almost from my Jeannie's birth— is still liv 
ing (1869), one of the venerablest and most faithful of women. I never saw 
such perfection of attachment, and doubt if it exists elsewhere. — T. C. 

3 To her aunts, Elizabeth, Ann, and Grace Welsh. 

* Widow of George Welsh. B Susan Hunter. 



dington station, told me there was a letter from you here for me, 
but it proved only the briefest of notes from John. Yours, how- 
ever, came yesterday forenoon, just when I was sallying out to 
make calls. I was through all our house yesterday, from garret to 
kitchen; everybody is so good to me, so very good! Miss Howden 
brought me a bouquet 'out of jour own garden' last night, and 
Helen Howden has just .sent me her children to look at, and you 
wrote me a nice long letter — so 1 ought to be thankful. I go back 
to 10 Clarence Street on Thursday (to-morrow night), and stay with 
my aunts till Saturday, when 1 shall go to Scotsbrig. 1 have writ- 
ten to John. J. W. C. 

No more room; margin itself half full. — T. C. 

LETTER 115. 
To T. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 
Maryland Street. Liverpool: Friday, Sept. 14, 1849. 

Oh, my dear, my dear! How thankful I may be that I knew 
nothing of that colic 1 till it was over! A colic in these cholera- 
times would have alarmed me in any circumstances; but there — 
remembering, as I still do, ' rather exquisitely,' my own sore throat 
transacted at Alverstoke three winters ago, and other little attacks 
of my own, under the same regime — how could 1 have stayed in my 
skin, with no certainty that you would be able to get so much as a 
cup of bad tea. never to speak of hot water to your feet, or human 
sympathy V You were not, it would seem, so wholly left to Provi- 
dence as I was; still it is a great mercy that you were not long laid 
up in that house, or any other of their houses. As my aunt Grace 
told me very often during my bad day: ' There is mercy mixed up 
with all our afflictions ! It is a great comfort to think "you are in 
better hands than ours — I mean in Jesus Christ's.' 'Oh, ay!' said 
dear Betty, 'Christ has care of my bairn a'wheres, even "on the 
railway! And a great comfort that is for me to think, now that 
she gangs sac muckle be them! ' But of all that, some quiet even- 
ing at Chelsea. 

I have to tell you now that a note from Elizabeth, lying for me 
here, stated that she continued better, but not strong yet, and that 
her sister was still with her, and would stay till 1 came — a great 
luck that this sister happened to be out of a place just now. I 
fancy the poor girl had been in a very dangerous way before we 
heard of her illness. 

Now that 1 know of this sister being with her, I feel in less 
breathless haste to fly to her rescue — can yield to Jeannie's wish, 
which is indeed an obligation of duty on me, with a good grace, 
that I would stay here over Sunday, to give her my advice about 
Helen; she (Jeannie) being to arrive from Auchtertool to-morrow 
night, to look after poor Helen, who has been very ill indeed, and 
I am afraid has a disease on her that, may end fatally, sooner than 
any of them are aware. I was dreadfully shocked with her shape, 
and emaciated look; still she can go out for exercise, and protests 
that she is getting better, but there is death iu her face. We wish 
John to examine into her ease; but she is extremely nervous about 
him, and it must be gone about delicately when Jeannie comes. I 
am glad dear John came with me. 

When I have talked with Jeannie I can be of no further use here, 
only a trouble in fact; so. on Monday, I mean to go to Manchester, 
to make amends to Geraldiue for the vexation about me, caused by 
that foolish Harriet Martineau; ■ and to London straight, next day. 
That is my present programme; if it receive any modification I will 
write again to Scotsbrig, where I hope this will find you safe and 
slept. If you get as nice porridge, and nice coffee, and nice every- 
thing, with such a seasoning of human kindness, as I got there, you 
will need no more pity. 

John went out with Betsy 5 last night, there being no bed for him 
here, unless he bad chosen to sleep in a little one in my room, 
which I told him he was welcome to do, if he liked!! But he de- 
clined. He promised to come to-day about one, and stay till night. 
And to-morrow Betsy is to bring the carriage, and take me to Sea- 
forth for a few hours, just to satisfy her that I have not ' registered 
a vow in Heaven ' never to set my foot in her house again. But a 
few hours will lie enough of that. She looks to be more than ever 
in a state of 'mild delirhim,' 

And now I must end and go to Helen. Kindest love to your 
mother and all of them. And tell Isabella I forgot the woodriff ; 
and she must stuff some into your carpet-bag. 

If you write on Sunday or Monday, in time for Tuesday morn- 
ing, address to Geraldine's. You remember Carlton Terrace, Green 
Heys, Manchester. 

Ever affectionately yours, 

Jane W. C. 
LETTER 116. 

To Mrs. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 

5 Cheyne Kow: Sunday, Oct. 1849. 
My dear Mrs. Carlyle, — If John is not there to talk to you, 
how you will be needing more than ever to be written to. And I 

1 Got by a too violent excursion to Glen— large miscellaneous party. Lord 
Ashburton and I rode over stock and stone on Highland ponies. 
3 Gossip of some kind. 3 Mrs. Paulet. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



67 



should be very ungrateful for all your affection and kindness if I 
did uot contribute my mite, especially as you are the only person 
tnat ever complimented me on my handwriting! • 

The settling down at home after all those wanderings has been a 
serious piece of work for both Mr. C. and myself; for me, I have 
only managed it by a large consumption of morphia. At last, 
however, I begin to sleep, if not like a Christian yet, at least less 
like a heathen. Mr. C. is at his work again, and my maid is at her 
work again; and the supernumerary sister is gone away; and now 
that the house should go on in its old routine there is only needed 
a cat (the last was drowned for unexampled dishonesty during my 
absence) to eat the regiments of mice, who have effected a settle- 
ment in every part of the house, the parlour not excepted, and who 
threaten to run up one's very petticoats while one is rending one's 
book! Mr. C, in the midst of talking to me the other evening, 
suddenly stamped his foot on the hearth-rug and called out furi- 
ously "Get along, sir! ' and he had not gone mad, had merely per- 
ceived a mouse at his feet! 

I am also terribly ill off for curtains, bugs having invaded the 
premises as well as mice, and all my curtains having been frantic- 
ally torn down, and sent to the dyers; not so much to have the 
colour renewed, as to have the bugs boiled to death. 

The middle of next week it is promised I shall have my bed set 
up again; but in the meanwhile I feel like a poor wretch in an 
hospital, or a beggar's lodging-house, lying without a rag about me 
to hide my 'sleeping.' or oftenest sleepless, 'beauties' from the 
universe! What troubles people have in this world in merely pro- 
tecting themselves from the inferior animals! 

For the rest: London is quiet enough for the most retired taste 
at present, and I like it best so; there are always some ' dandering 
individuals ' dropping in, to prevent one from growing quite sav- 
age, and of excitement I had enough in Scotland to serve me for 
many months to come. I am very glad I have been in Scotland 
once more, and seen all those places and people; though it was 
smashing work at the time! I have brought away many recollec- 
tions that will be a pleasure for me all my life; and my visit to 
Scotsbrig was the one in which I had most unmixed satisfac- 
tion; for, along with my pleasure at Haddington and Edinburgh, 
there was almost more pain than I could bear. But you were all 
so kind to me, and then you were little changed. I had seen you 
all so much more recently, and, in short, in finding so much to 
please me at Scotsbrig, I miss nothing I had ever possessed there. 
In the other places it was far otherwise. 

I hope you have the same mild weather that has been here the 
last few days; that your poor face may be quite mended. We 
shall be very auxious till we hear that you are in your usual state 
again, and that Jamie is come home well. I am very sorry about 
Jamie's ill-health; he seems to deserve more than any of us to be 
6troug. leading the natural, hard-working life that he leads, and 
manifesting at all times such a manly, patient, steadfast mind. 

My love to Isabella, who I hope is not gone with him; for she is 
not strong enough for encountering agitations of that sort. 

Hoping to hear soon good news of you all, I remain, dear Mrs. 
Carlyle, ever yours 

Affectionately, 

Jane W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 117. 

To Mrs. Aitken, Dumfries. 

5 Cheyne Row: Oct. 1849. 

My dear Jane, — Your letter was one of the letters that one feels 
a desire to answer the instant one is done reading it — an out of-the- 
heart letter that one's own heart (if one happen to have one) jumps 
to meet. But writing with Mr. C. waiting for his tea was. as you 
will easily admit, a moral impossibility; and after tea there were 
certain accursed flannel shirts (oh, the alterations that have been 
made on them!) to 'piece;' and yesterday, when I made sure of 
writing you a long letter, I had a headache, and durst not either 
write or read for fear of having to go to bed with it. To-day I 
write; but with no leisure, though I have no 'small clothes' to 
make, nor any disturbance in that line (better for me if I had); still 
I get into as great bustles occasionally as if I were the mother of a 
fine boisterous family. Did you hear that I found bugs in my red 
bed on my return? I who go mad where a bug is! and that bed 
'such a harbour for them,' as the upholsterer said. Of course I had 
it pulled in pieces at once, and the curtains sent to the dyeing — at 
immense expense — and ever since I have been lying in the cold 
nights between four tall bare posts, feeling like a patient in a London 
hospital. To-day at last two men are here putting up my curtains, 
and making mistakes whenever I stay many minutes away from 
them; and as soon as their backs are turned I have to go off several 
miles in an omnibus to see Thackeray, who has been all but dead, 
and is still confined to his room, and who has written a line to ask 
me to come and see him. And I have great sympathy always with, 
and show all the kindness in my power to, sick people — having so 
much sickness myself, and knowing how much kindness then is 
gratifying to me. 

So you see, dear, it is not the right moment for writing you the 
letter that is lying in my heart for you. But I could not, under any 



circumstances, refrain longer from telling you that your letter was 
very, very welcome ; that the tears raudown my face over it— 
though Mr. C. was sitting opposite, and would have scolded me for 
'sentimentality' if he had seen me crying over kind words merely; 
and that I have read it three times, and carried it in my pocket 
ever since I got it, though my rule is to burn all letters. Oh, yes; 
there is no change in me, so far as affection goes, depend upon that. 
But there are other changes, which give me the look of a very cold 
and hard woman generally. I durst not let myself talk to you at 
Scotsbrig, and now that the opportunity is passed I almost wish I 
had. But I think it not likely, if I live, that I will be long of re- 
turning to Scotland. All that true, simple, pious kindness that I 
found stored up for me there ought to be turned to more account 
in my life. What have I more precious? 

Please burn this letter — I mean don't hand it to the rest; there is 
a circulation of letters in families that frightens me from writing 
often; it is so difficult to write a circular to one. 

How glad I am to hear such good news of Jamie. 1 I hope to- 
night's post will tell us he is safe home. John, I fancy from Jean- 
nie's last letter, does not go back with him, but to Auchtertool for 
a little longer. 

Your poor mother and her face — what a bout she must have had! 
For me, I am really better; though I may say, in passing, that Mr. 
C.'s 'decidedly stronger' is never to be depended on in any account 
he gives of me — as, so long as I can stand on my legs, he never no- 
tices that anything ails me; and I make a point of never complain 
ing to him unless in case of absolute extremity. But I have, for the 
last week, been sleeping pretty well, and able to walk again, which 
I had uot been up to since my return. 

About the bonnet: send it by any opportunity you find, just as it 
is; I can trim very nicely myself, and perhaps might not like Miss 
Montgomery's colour. But I cannot have it for nothing, dear. If 
Miss G. won't take money, I must find some other way of paying 
her. God bless you, dear Jane, and all yours. Remember me to 
James ; and never doubt my affection for yourself, as I shall never 
doubt yours for me. 

Ever, J. W. C. 

LETTER 118. 
John Forster, Esq., 58 Lincoln's Inn Melds. 

Chelsea: Tuesday evening, Nov. 14, 1849. 
God's will be done! dear Mr. Foster. If one said otherwise, it 
would do itself all the same in spite of our teeth; so best to sub- 
scribe with a good grace. I have taken ' a heavy cold ' — had not 
five minutes' sleep all night with it, and am just risen after a fever- 
ish day in bed. There is no present prospect of my being up to 
any sort of pleasure to-morrow; and 1 think with dismay of Mrs. 
Dickens brought to meet me, and me not forthcoming. So I write 
at once that you may if you like put the other female off. But for 
Mrs. Dickens, who may not perhaps feel so perfectly at home 'in 
Chambers' as you have taught me to feel, I should have waited till 
the last moment in hope of a miracle being worked in my favour. 

Mr. C. of course will be with you as little too late as possible for 
a man of his habits. 

Affectionately yours, 

Jane Carlyle. 

There is a novel I might read if I could get it during this period 
of sneezing and streaming at the eyes, written by a very young girl 
of the name of Mulock; not Dickens's 'a young lady grow'd.' I 
can't remember the name of the book; but the authoress's name is 
Molock or something very like it, and it is published by Chapman. 
It must be rather curious to see, for I am told by Madame Pepoli 
the Molock is eighteen, has read ' absolutely no books,' and seen 
'nothing whatever of society; ' and the book is coming to a second 
edition — •' circulates in families,' and will yield profit. 

LETTER 119. 

Poor little Nero, the dog, must have come this winter, or ' Fall' 
(1849)? Railway Guard (from Dilberoglue, Manchester) brought 
him in one evening late. A little Cuban (Maltese? and otherwise 
mongrel) shock, mostly white — a most affectionate, lively little dog, 
otherwise of small merit, and little or no training. Much innocent 
sport there rose out of him; much quizzical ingenuous preparation 
of me for admitting of him: ' My dear, it's borne in upon my mind 
that I'm to have a dog!' &c, &c, and with such a look and style! 
We had many walks together, he and I, for the next ten years; a 
great deal of small traffic, poor little animal, so loyal, so loving, so 
naive and true with what of dim intellect he had! Once, perhaps 
in his third year here, he came pattering upstairs to my garret; 
scratched duly, was let in, and brought me (literally) the Gift of a 
Horse (which I had talked of needing)! Brought me, to wit, a 
letter hung to his neck, inclosing on a saddler's card the picture of 
a horse, and adjoined to it her cheque for 501. — full half of some 
poor legacy which had fallen to her! Can I ever forget such a 
thing? I was not slave enough to take the money; and got a 



' Brother Jamie. Been at Edinburgh for a surgical operation with John. 



68 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH OARLYLE. 



horse next year, on the common terms — but all Potosi, and the dig- 
gings new and old, had not in them, as I now feel, so rich a gift! 
Poor Nero's last good days were with us at Aberdour in 1859. 
Twice or thrice I flung him into the sea there, which he didn't at 
all like; and in consequence of which he even ceased to follow me 
at bathing time, the very strongest measure he could take — or pre- 
tend to take. For two or three mornings accordingly I had seen 
nothing of Nero; but the third or fourth morning, on striking out 
to swim a few yards, I heard gradually a kind of swashing behind 
me; looking back, it was Nero out on voluntary humble partner- 
ship — ready to swim with me to Edinburgh or to the world's end 
if I liked! " Fife had done his mistress, and still more him, a great 
deal of good. But, alas! in Cook's grounds here, within a mouth 
or two a butcher's cart (in her very sight) ran over him neck and 
lungs; all winter he wheezed and suffered; 'Feb. 1st, I860,' he 
died (prussic acid, and the doctor obliged at last!) — I could not 
have believed my grief then and since would have been the twenti- 
eth part of what' it was — nay, that the want of him would have been 
to me other than a riddance. Our last midnight-walk together 
(for he insisted on trying to come), Jan. 31, is still painful to my 
thought. 'Little dim-white speck, of Life, of Love, Fidelity and 
Feeling, girdled by the Darkness as of Night Eternal!' Her tears 
were passionate and bitter; but repressed themselves as was fit, I 
think the first day. Top of the garden, by her direction, Nero was 
put under ground; a small stone tablet with date she also got — 
which, broken by careless servants, is still there (a little protected 
now). 

John Forster, Esq., 58 Lincoln's Inn Fields. 

Chelsea: Dec. 11, 1849. 

My dear Mr. Forster, — I died ten days ago and was buried at Ken- 
sal Green; at least you have no certainty to the contrary: what is 
the contrary? Do you mean to fulfil that promise of coming in 
the evening? 

Do you know Alfred's address? if so, forward the inclosed, 
please; it is a piece of a letter that may gratify him a little, and, 
though no great hand at the 'welfare of others' business, I don't 
mind giving a man a little gratification when it can be done at the 
small cost of one penny. Your affectionate 

Jaue Carlyle. 

Oh, Lord ! I forgot to tell you I have got a little dog, and Mr. 
C. has accepted it with an amiability. To be sure, when he comes 
down gloomy in the morning, or comes in wearied from his walk, 
the infatuated little beast dances round him on its hind legs as I 
ought to do and can't; and he feels flattered and surprised by such 
unwonted capers to his honour and glory. 

LETTER 120. 
John Forster, Esq., 58 Lincoln's Inn Fields. 

Chelsea: Dec. 1849. 
My dear Mr. Forster, — I hope the newspaper arrived safe! 
Henry 1 looked so excited when he heard it was consigned to the 
Post Office, and exclaimed so wildly, ' I would not for five pounds 
that it were lost! Mr. Forster would be in such a way,' that I quite 
trembled with apprehension about it all the evening. Mr. C. put 
it in with his own hand, and out of his own head. 

I am still confined to the house in a very shabby condition in- 
deed, and neee cheering spectacles (don't I wish I may get 'em?), 
a sight of you for example. Meanwhile thanks for Mu'lock's book, 
which I read with immense interest. It is long since I fell in with 
a novel of this sort, all about love, and no'hing else whatever. It 
quite reminds one of one's own love's young dream. I like it, and 
like the poor girl who can still believe, or even ' believe that she be- 
lieves,' all that. God help her! She will sing to another tune if 
she go on living and writing for twenty yens' 

I am desired by the other Forster, 1 the unreal it must be since 
you are ' the real,' to forward to you his defence of W. Penn, as if 
anybody out of the family of Friends cared a doit about W. Penn. 
For me, I could never get up a grain of interest about any Quaker, 
dead or alive, except ' Tawell ' 3 of the apple pips. 4 
All good be with you. 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane Caklyi/e. 

LETTER 121. 
Mrs. Russell, TkornhiU. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Dec. 31, 1849. 
Dearest Mrs. Russell, — To think that I should never have written 
you one line since the distracted little note I sent you from Notting- 
ham in July last, and so often I have thought of it too! Nay, I 
actually began a letter one day in October; 1 had just been writing 
I inimlaiirig ( 'astle, Thornhill, on the back of a letter to Lady Ash- 
burton, who was on a visit there, and had written me out the ad- 



1 Mr. Forster's servant. 

- William Edward (of Bradford), the ex-Quaker, now Her Majesty's Minis- 
ter, ,£c. &C. 

3 Murderer, * Advocate's excuse. 



dress as particularly as if I had never heard of Drumlanrig in my 
life. And it struck me as something quite unnatural that I should 
be writing Thornhill after any other name than yours; just as when 
I first wrote to you I found it so very strange and sad to be writing 
that place after anyone's name but my mother's And so, by way 
of making ameuds to nature, 1 began a second letter, one to you to 
go by the same post; but some visitor came in, and what does not 
get done by me at the right moment is apt to miss getting done al- 
together. 

When I wrote from Nottingham I remember I durst not trust 
myself to tell you anything about me, even if there had been lei- 
sure for it. I was in such a nervous state: promised to Mr. C. and 
to my own mind to go to Scotland, but afraid to make my purpose 
known lest, after all, I should shirk it at the last moment, as I had 
done once before; and, even if I got into Scotland, I could not 
have told you, for my life, what I was going to do there, where I 
should go or not go. Sometimes, in brave moments, I thought of 
visiting Thornhill as well as Haddington; and then it seemed all 
but impossible for me ever to set foot in either place — and if I did 
I was not sure that I would show myself to any living person of 
my friends, in either the one place or the other. So I thought it 
best to say nothing to you of my intentions till I ascertained, by 
trying, what part of them I could carry out. It was not till I was 
in the railway for Haddington that I was sure I was really going 
there. And I did spend a night there in the principal inn, the win- 
dows of which looked out on our old house, without anyone sus- 
pecting who I was. I arrived at six in the evening, and left at 
eleven rext day, after having walked over the whole place, and 
seen everything I wished to see— except the people. I could not 
have stood their embraces, and tears, and 'all that sort of thing,' 
without breaking down entirely; so I left that part of the business 
till the agitation, caused by the sight of the old place, should have 
subsided, and I could return with my nerves in good order. 
Which I did for three days, after having been six weeks in Fife and 
other places, with which I had no associations either sad or gay. It 
was the same when I went to Annandale; till the last moment I 
was not sure I could go, and would not have gone but for the pain 
I was going to give my husband's family by passing them by. 
Actually when I left Edinburgh for Ecclefechau, I did not know 
whether the railway went through Thornhill! had not dared to 
satisfy myself! and at all the stations after I got into Dumfriesshire 
I kept my eyes shut, This will sound to you like sheer madness; 
but it was no more than extreme nervousness, which I could not 
control, and so must be excused for. I stayed only two days at 
Scotsbrig, and then hurried on to Manchester, where I was detained 
by severe illness. Another time it will not be so bad, I hope; and 
I shall behave more like a rational woman. You may believe I got 
little good of the country, under such circumstances: I returned to 
London so ill, and continued so ill, so long a time, that I got into 
the way of doing nothing I could possibly help; and so it happened 
that, having lightened my conscience of the half-sovereign which a 
Miss Skinner undertook to convey to you, I postponed writing till 
— now! 

If anniversaries be, in many respects, painful things, they are 
useful at least in putting orderly people, like me, on settling up 
their duties as well as their accounts. And so I am busier this 
week than for months back, bringing up my correspondences, &c, 
&c. Fortunately I am on foot, and even able to go out a little in 
the forenoon, though the frost is hard enough. I seem to have got 
off, this winter, with only three weeks' confinement. For the rest, 
the pleasautest fact in my life for a good while is, that I have got a 
beautiful little dog, that I hope I will not make such a fool of 

myself with, as Mrs. M- used to make of herself with— what 

was the object's name? He is not, of course, either so pretty or so 
clever as Shandy, and if he were I should not think so; but he is 
' belter than I deserve,' as Coleridge said of his cold tea; and I like 
him better than I choose to show publicly. The sad part of the 
business is that I dare not take him out with me without a chain, 
for fear of the ' dog-stealers, ' who are a numerous and active body. 

I am sending you, for good luck, a book, which I hope you will 
get some amusement out of — perhaps the best New Year's gift one 
can make— a little amusement I mean. The two bits of things, for 
Margaret and Mary, you will give them with my kind remem- 
brance, and the Post-Office < >rder I need not point out the use of. 

God bless you, dear Mrs. Russell, with love to your husband and 
father. 

1 am ever your affectionate 

Jane Carlyle. 

Please tell me how old Mary stands. When is her money due? 
I always forget. 

LETTER 122. 

' Latter-Day Pamphlets ' had at last, winter, 1849. resolved them- 
selves into that form; and were to be published by Chapman; 
Forster, he, and I walking together (I very sad and heavy) towards 
Chapman's house, which I did not enter, on cold windy Sunday 
(Chapman with the rough MSS. in his pocket): this I can still 
recollect; and that my resolution was taken and Chapman's not 
doubted of— but not the month or day. Probably after December, 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



69 



on which day Nigger Question (in 'Fraser') had come out with 
execrative shrieks from several people — J. S. Mill for one ; who in- 
deed had personally quite parted from me, a year or two before, I 
knew not and to this day know not why; nor in fact ever much 
inquired, since it was his silly pleasure, poor Mill! . 

First ' Latter-Day ' dated ' Feby 1 ' had come out January 29 and 
been sent to me at 'The Grange'; where with Robert Lowe and 
Delane I recollect being for a day or two — and ultimately having a 
pleasant wise kind of night with Milues as the one other guest; 
' Boreas ' the lady's arch designation for me as we talked ! Pam- 
phlet 1st was read by both the Lady A and Milnes nest day in 

the railway as we all journeyed up; remarks few or none. I was 
to be very'busy thenceforth till the chaos of the MSS. was all got 
spun out into distinct webs — and after that till I tired, which was 
soon after, essential impulse being spent there. 

In this short absence, I have no letter, except this which Nero 
wrote me, dear little clever dog! 'Columbine' is the black cat, 
with whom he used to come waltzing in, directly on the dining- 
room door opening, in the height of joy; like Harlequin and Col- 
umbine, as I once heard remarked and did not forget. ' Mrs. 
Lindsay,' I believe, is a sister of Miss Wynne's, 'Small beings,' 
Mazzini's name for two roasted larks she would often dine on, 
especially when by herself! For smallness, grace, salubrity and 
ingenuity, I have never seen such human diners. — T. C. 

To T. Carlyle, The Grange, Alresford, Hants. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Tuesday, Jan. 29, 1850. 

Dear Master, — I take the liberty to write to you myself (my mis- 
tress being out of the way of writing to you she says) that you may 
know Columbine and I are quite well, and play about as usual. 
There was no dinner yesterday to speak of; I had for my share 
only a piece of biscuit that might have been round the world ; and 
if Columbine got anything at all, I didn't see it. I made a grab at 
one of two 'small beings' on my mistress's plate; she called them 
heralds of the morn; but my mistress said, 'Don't you wish you 
may get it? ' and boxed my ears. I wasn't taken to walk on ac- 
count of its being wet. And nobody came, but a man for ' burial 
rate'; and my mistress gave him a rowing, because she wasn't go- 
ing to be buried here at all. Columbine and I don't mind where 
we are buried. 

This is a fine day for a run ; and I hope I may be taken to see 
Mohe and Dumm. They are both nice well-bred dogs, and always 
so glad to see me ; and the parrot is great fun, when I spring at 
her; and Mrs. Lindsay has always such a lot of bones, and doesn't 
mind Mohe and Dumm and me eating them on the carpet. I like 
Mrs. Lindsay very much. 

Tuesday evening. 

Dear Master, — My mistress brought my chain, and said 'come 
along with me, while it shined, and I could finish after.' But she 
kept me so long in the London Library, and other places, that I had 
to miss the post. An old gentleman in the omnibus took such no- 
tice of me! He looked at me a long time, and then turned to my 
mistress, and said ' Sharp, isn't he? ' And my mistress was so good 
as to say, 'Oh yes!' And then the old gentleman said again, 'I 
knew it! easy to see that!' And he put his hand in his hind- 
pocket, anditook out a whole biscuit, a sweet one, and gave it me 
in bits. I was quite sorry to part from him, he was such a good 
judge of dogs. Mr. Greig from Canad'agua and his wife left cards 
while we were out. Columbine said she saw them through the 
blind, and they seemed nice people. 

Wednesday. 

I left off, last night, dear master, to be washed. This morning I 
have seen a note from you, which says you will conic to morrow. 
Columbine and I are extremely happy to hear it; for then there 
will be some dinner to come and go on. Being to see you so soon, 
no more at present from your 

Obedient little dog, 

Nero. 

LETTER 123. 
To Mrs. Russell, ThornhiU. 
5 Cheyue Row, Chelsea: Wednesday, Feb. 3?, 1850. 

My dear Mrs. Russell, — Perhaps Mr. C. may be in Scotland this 
coming month; you may have seen by the newspapers that one 
party of the Aberdeen students want him for their Lord Rector, 
the others wanting the Duke of Argyll, who will suit the purpose 
better, I should think. If Mr. C. be elected, he must, in common 
civility to his admiring boys, go and make them a speech, and 
come back again. A long journey for so brief a purpose! and at 
an inconvenient time, wheu he is bothering with his pamphlets. 
So lie rather wishes the Duke may be the happy man. 

The great delight of my life at present is the little dog I think I 
told you of. It "was stolen for a whole day; but escaped back to 
me on its own four legs. Mr. C. asked while it was a-missing: 
'What will you be inclined to give the dogstealers, for bringing it 
back to you?' (dog-stealing being a regular trade here); and I an- 
swered passionately with-'a flood of tears ' my whole half-year's 
allowance!' So you r ay fancy the fine way I am in. Lady 



Ashburton has given me the name of Agrippina ; the wit of which 1 
you would not see unless I told you my dog's name was Nero. 

I want you to do something for me. if you can: — I saw at AucU^- 
tertool, a slip of the Templand sweetbriar, that had taken root' 
finely, brought by one of those ladies I saw. If. at the proper 
time for slipping, you could get me a little bit and send it by post, 
I should be very grateful. I brought, or rather had sent, from 
Haddington, a slip of the jessamine that grew over our dining-room 
window, and another of a Templand rose, which my mother took 
with her to Sunny Bank; and both are growing to my great satis- 
faction. 

All good be with you, dear Mrs. Russell. 

Tour ever affectionate 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 124. 

Is at Addiscombe, on visit for a few days; returned thence, soon, 
as will be seen. I was too deep in ' Latter-Day Pamphlets ' to ac- 
company. ' Poor orphan ' was to me abundantly ridiculous, though 
lost to any stranger. Willie Donaldson and Mrs. (usually called 
Peg) Irrin, crossing Sol way sands, with their small cargo of mer- 
chandises in their wheezy little equipage, fancy themselves, at one 
moment, lost utterly; but are not, and are overheard in dialogue: 

William: 'O Paig, Paig, a misspaint life!' Peg (as if in solilo- 
quy): ' What'll become of the poor orphin at home?' — their only 
child ' Bett,' a loudhaveril of a lass, against whom this bit of pathos 
was remembered. 

Willie was an Aberdeen man ; probably a carpenter before en- 
listing; had fought at the Bunker Hill business; was now a pen- 
sioner, asthmatically making rakes, used to lend his cart, on bon- 
fire-victory occasions (as if in duty bound) to be whirled rapidly 
from door to door, over the village in peremptory demand of the 
fuel necessary. — T. C. 

To Master Nero, {under cover to) T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

Addiscombe: Wednesday, March 20, 1850. 

My 'poor orphan!' My dear good little dog! How are you? 
How do they use you? Above all, where did you sleep? Did 
they put you to bed by yourself in my empty room, or did you 
'cuddle in' with your surviving parent? Strange that amidst all 
my anxieties about you, it should never have struck me with whom 
were you to sleep; never once, until I was retiring to bed myself 
without you trotting at my heels! Still, darling, I am glad 1 did 
not take you with me. If there had been nothing else in it, the 
parrot 1 alone was sufficient hindrance; she pops 'all about;' and 
for certain you wotfld have pulled her head off; and then it would 
have been 'all over' with you and me. They would have hated 
us ' intensely! ' 

The lady for whom I abandoned you — to whom all family ties 
yield — is pretty well again, so far as I see. She is very kind, and 
in good spirits; so my absence from you has all the compensation 
possible. But I shall be glad to receive your affectionate caresses 
to-morrow. Kiss your father for me. \ 

Ever your loving 

Agrippina. 

LETTER 125. 
Mrs. Aitken, Dumfries. 

Chelsea: Sunday, April 1850. 
My dear Jane, — The spirit moves me to write you a letter this 
morning; if I begin with excuses, the impulse will get overlaid by 
the difficulty of the thing, and stick .short in a mere ' good inten- 
tion; ' so here goes ' quite promiscuously.' I have little to tell you 
worth even a penny stamp; oneself — at least myself — is a sort of 
Irish-bog subject in which one is in danger of sinking overhead; 
common prudence commands therefore to ' keep out of that,' what- 
ever else; and my days do not pass amidst people and tilings so 
interesting, in themselves, as to be worth writing about to one safe 
and sound on the outside of all that, as you are. What good 
would it do you, for example, to have given the ' most graphic ' 
description of the great ' flare up ' we had at the Wedgwoods yes- 
terday — where all the notabilities Mrs. W. had ever got a catch at 
were hauled in ' at one fell swoop,' making a sort of Tower of 
Babel concern of it; that has left nothing behind for me, ' as one 
solitary individual,' but a ringing in my ears, and a dull headache! 
What a tenacity there must be in human nature, that people can 
go on to the oldest age with that sort of thing! The young ladies 
in wreaths and white muslins with 'the world all before them 
where to choose ' — a husband— those one can understand delighting 
in such gatherings; as a young Irish lady told a friend of mine, ' I 
go wherever I am invited, however much I may dislike the people 
who ask me; for nobody knows on whose carpet one's lot may be! ' 
But the people who have already taken up their lot and found it 
(as who does not?) a rather severe piece of work, what they get or 
expect in such scenes to compensate the cost and fatigue I have no 
conception. . I was sitting beside old Mrs. Fletcher of Edinburgh 
last night — she is seventy-four, I believe — when old Sir R. Inglis 

1 Lady A.'s 'green chimera.' 



70 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



was brought up to her, 'to renew their acquaintance.' 'I dare 
hardly say,' said Sir Robert, ' how long I believe it to be since I 
had last the pleasure of meeting you in society.' 'It is just forty- 
one years,' replied Mrs. Fletcher! and these two old people did not 
burst into tears or 'go aboot worship' but fell to talking trivialities 
just like the young ones! Well 1 shall be dead before I am any- 
thing like as old as Mrs. Fletcher, and 1 shall not wait till I am 
dead to retire from public life. Sly beau-ideal of existence this 
long while has been growing farther and farther from that 'getting 
on ' or rather ' got on ' in society which is the aim of so much fe- 
male aspiration and effort! 

I suppose John will be coming back soon now, and that will be 
one good thing. 1 have a little dog that I make more fuss about 
than beseems a sensible woman. The next time I go to Scotland 
he shall accompany me, and see if be don't ' ingrusii himself with 
the people '! He walks with me, this creature, and sleeps with me, 
and sits with me — so I am no longer alone any more than you are 
with your bairns — though the company is different! mine has one 
advantage however; it needs no sewing for, and then, too, 1 am 
troubled with no anxiety about its prospects in life. 

An old East Lothian friend turned up for me lately who comes a 
great deal and makes terrible long stays. The last time I had seen 
her she was riding away in bridal finery beside her artillery officer 
husband; I found her now. after thirty years and odd, without 
teeth, all wrinkled, in weeds for that same husband, whom, bow- 
ever, she had long been separated from. So goes the world ! Here 
is a specimen of a new sort of lady's work — the embroidery is cut 
out and stiched on — it is done very fast. 

With kind regards to James, 

Ever your affectionate 

J. C. 

LETTER 126. 
To Mrs. Russell, Thornhill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Monday, July 15, 1850. 

My dear Mrs. Russell, — I could give myself a good whipping 
(with a few side strokes to the getters-up of our new Post Office 
regulations), for having let the 14th pass without any remembrance 
of me to old Mary. But it is myself who am the chief delinquent; 
for I might have sent my packet to you any day of the week, who 
would not have been too puritanical to transmit it to her on the 
Sunday. I did not think of that, however, till too late, having not 
yet got familiarised to these new regulations; it was only on Friday 
"that it struck my stupidity, a letter despatched that night would not 
be delivered any longer on Sunday. Better late than never, any- 
how; so I send to-day five shillings for a pair of new shoes to Ma- 
ry, or anything else you may please to invest it in, and some lace 
for Margaret to put on a cap. 

Two of the roses you sent me are in a promising way, and also 
the polyanthuses, but the third rose is clean dead, and the sweet- 
briar too, I fear, is past hope; it did well at first — too well, I sup- 
pose — for it hurried itself to put out leaves when it should have 
been quietly taking root — a procedure not confined to sweet-briars; 
one sees many human beings go off in the same fashion. 

There has been a dreadful racket here this season — worse, I 
think, than in any London season I ever lived through — it has 
seemed to me sometimes as if the town must burst into spontane- 
ous combustion. All the people of my acquaintance who come to 
London occasionally, have come this year at one time, spoiling the 
pleasure I should have bad in seeing them individually by present- 
ing themselves all in a rush — in fact, our house, for two months 
back, has been like an inn, only ' no money taken,' and I feel like 
a landlady after an election week. And the balls and parties all 
round one, to certain of which I have had to go, for the sake of 
what is called ' keeping up one's acquaintance,' have been enough 
to churn one into a sort of human ' trifle.' Peel's death came like 
a black cloud over this scene of so-called 'gaieties,' for a few days 
but only for a few days. Nothing leaves a long impression here. 
People dare not let themselves think or feel in this centre of frivolity 
and folly; they would go mad if they did, and universally commit 
suicide; for to 'take a thocht and mend ' is far from their inten- 
tion. 

I don't know what is to be done next, now that the town is 
emptying, and my husband in the act of finishing his last pamphlet. 
I suppose he will go away somewhere, but where or when will not 
be known till the clay before be does it. My old Helen (now gone 
to the dogs) used to beg pathetically that she might be ' told in time 
to wash all his shirts,' but he couldn't tell what he didn't know him- 
self till the eleventh hour. Probably he will be in Annandale 
wherever else; for myself, I have an arden land wholesome desire 
to get my house cleaned, under my own eyes this year, for doesn't 
it need it! Besides, I had such a fagging about last year that I feel 
no need of stirring at all, and Loudon is always pleasantest to me 
when it is what is called 'empty.' For my health, it is rather 
better than last year — not much, but I make it do. 

All good be with you and yours, dear Mrs. Russell. 

Ever your affectionate 

J&NE CaKLYLE. 



LETTER 127. 

' Latter-Day Pamphlets ' finished and safe behind me, I go for 
Wales, to Redwood, 'last day of July' it would seem, on which 
evening, till near noon of next day. 1 was Walter Savage Landor's 
guest, much taken with the gigant'esquc, explosive, but essentially 
chivalrous and almost heroic old man. In his poor lodging, 3 
Rivers Street, Bath, and his reception and treatment of me there, 
1 found something which I could call ' ducal ' or higher than if lie 
had been a duke, and still palatial. To Bristol, to Cardiff, to good 
solitary Redwood's country cottage next day. There for perhaps a 
month — solitary and silent. — T. V. 

To T. Carlyle, Covsbridge. 

Sunday night, Aug. 4, 1850. 

' Oh dear me! ' It looks already a month since you went aw ay, 
counting by the number of things I have pulled to pieces, and the 
weary hours I have lain awake, and the lonely thoughts that have 
persecuted me. But to lie awake at nights, and to have lonely 
thoughts by night and by day is surely nothing new or strange for 
me, that I should think it worth recording at, this date! And for 
the work, it will not be irksome, but ' a good joy,' such good joy 
as 1 am still susceptible of — when it gets into the "stage of restoring 
to order. Tiie house has, in fact, been rushing down towards chaos 
during the last, year ; a certain smoothing of the surface kept up; 
and underneath, dirt and confusion really too bad. But it is in the 
way of getting itself rehabilitated now; and I shall try in time com- 
ing to be a better housewife at least; that career being always open 
to talent. I remember, when I was very ill of a sore throat at 
Craigenputtock, thinking that, if I died, all my drawers would be 
found in the most perfect order; and there was more satisfaction in 
the thought than you (a man) can conceive. Curious to think how 
all would have gone, if I had died then! But you will like better 
some news than 'bottomless speculations of that sort.' 

Well, till Thursday night I bad no speech with any mortal; then, 
about eight o'clock, walked in Mrs. N ,' of all undesired peo- 
ple! My first feeling was that I was intruded upon by ' an im- 
proper female;' but as the interview proceeded, her calm self- 
approving manner, and radiant, face — radiant as with conscious 
virtue (!) really — quite subjugated me, and I began to fancy it must 
be 'all right' for her, though looking so very shocking to me. 

N came to take her home; in tearing spirits. He theatrically 

kissed the tips of my fingers when I shook hands with him, and 

then kissed Mrs. N on the mouth! and said, 'Well, darling! 

how did 3'ou get here?' A more comfortable well-doing-like pair 
one could not wish to see! 

On Friday night Count, Reichenbach came, a shade less silent 
and woebegone. Then Massoti. I am going to take Count Reichen- 
bach to Mrs. Austin's with me, if she permit — will write to-morrow 
to propose the thing for Wednesday or Thursday (to give myself a 
day's recreation from my earthquakery). I am sorry for the man, 
he looks so lost. 

To-day (being Sunday) I told Elizabeth to take herself off for the 
whole day if she chose, that I might have no proposals to ' go out ' 
during the week, when I intend that she shall work. Most likely 
no one would come, I thought; and if anyone did, I would simply 
not open the door. I was standing with hands all over whiting, 
having just made a brilliant job of the curtain rods, when there 
came a rap and ring — no reply; I held Nero's nose that he might 
not bark; again a rap, very loud; then, after a long pause, both to- 
gether as loud as could be. Decidedly the individual would get in. 
I kept quite still; ' surely it is over now,' I was just saying when 
the knocking and ringing recommenced, aud went on at intervals 
for, I am sure, ten minutes! I could hardly help screaming, it 
made me so nervous. At last all was quiet; and, some quarter of 
an hour after the uproar, I went to look in the letter-box if the 
horrid visitor had left a card. When I looked in, I met, oh mercy, 
a pair of fox-eyes peering at me through the slit. I threw the door 
open in a rage (my hands had been washed by this time); and a 
coarse-featured red-haired squat woman exclaimed; 'She will com 

now, please no to shut; Mees S com.' ' What is it? ' I asked 

sharply. 'Oh she sit in so small bouse at corner! I run! keep 
open! no shoot! ' And off she went; and in three minutes brought 

back Miss J S .- I felt ready to strangle her in the first 

momerlt; but. she looked so pale and grave, like the widow of 
Chopin, and was so friendly, and unconscious, to all appearance, of 
my dislike to her, that I behaved quite amiably after all. She had 
asked at Chalmers' door if we were all gone; and the manservant 
said you were gone, that Elizabeth had told him yo\\ were to go first 
to Bath, then to Scotland, then to the Black Sea! ! And at the 
stick-shop at the corner the woman assured her ' I always came 
home at five to my dinner ' (it was then half after four); so she had 
meant to wait, and sent her maid to keep watch ! 

A letter for you, from Chorley, 3 not read by me for the world! 
And an invitation from that barenecked booing gawk Stewart . 

1 G N.'s wife. Once a very pretty little woman, but now getting 

stranded on a most miserable shore! Thanks to , &c. &c. Faugh!— T. C. 

2 A hoarse-voiced, restless, invalid Scotch lady, of some rank, mostly wan- 
dering about on the Continent, entertaining lions, and Piano Chopin, &c. Ac, 
but always swooping down upon London and us now and then. 

3 Come back from Spain, I suppose. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



71 



I might hiive sent word you were away; but lie deserves to be 
left for speculating, for his impudence — sitting in Sloane Street, 
and summoning you to him to be presented to his grand-lady wife, 
as he thinks her; a ' rum ' lady that could marry the like of him! 

For me a nole from Emily Baring, an invitation; very kind; but 
necessarily answered in the negative. It is loo lung and expensive 
a journey for a few days; and in my present complication I could 
not be absent longer than two or three days. Besides, Gerakline is 
still hanging in the wind. 

Miss W likes 'Jesuitism' best of all the pamphlets; so does 

Masson — 'such an admirable summing up;' just what I said. 
Your mother's copy was sent on Thursday. 

Took morphine last night, and slept some. A letter this morn- 
ing from Mrs. Macready, two little sheets all crossed! inviting me 
to Lyme Regis. Nero desires his respectful regards. 

Ever affectionately yours, 

Jane. 

LETTER 128. 
To T. Carlyle, Cowbridge, Glamorganshire. 

Chelsea : Thursday night, Aug. 22, 1850. 

Now, dear! I have done a fair day's work (of sewing chiefly), 
and can sit down with a certain leisure to write you a peaceable 
little letter. Yes. yes; I have ' composed myself,' am ' quiet.' You 
shall have no more wail or splutter from me on this occasion. If 
I had been an able-bodied woman instead of a thoroughly broken- 
down one, I should surely have had sense and reticence euough 
not to fret you, in your seclusion, with details of my household 
'worry.' But that dreadful Elizabeth 1 'murdered sleep; ' I 'lost 
my happefite.' and became so weak and excited that I was really no 
more responsible for what I wrote than a person in a brain fever 
would have been. For the last three nights I have been getting 
into sleep again without morphia, which had become worse than 
useless; and for the last three days I have eaten some dinner ' to 
speak of,' and now I begin to feel sane again, and, as John says, 
' L to see my way.' 

Gerakline left me last night, very unwillingly. A little pressing 
would have made her throw over Letty 2 altogether, and remain 
here for an indefinite time. It was not my wish, however, that 
she should protract her stay longer than she had already done; the. 
pleasure of having her to talk with, and to rub my feet, was not — 
at least would not have continued to be — a sufficient compensation 
for the additional trouble of a visitor in the house, with no servant 
but a little girl who had ' never been out before,' who could not 
cook a morsel of food or make a bed, or do any civilised thing, 
without having me at her heels. One does not like, if one can 
stand on one's legs at all, to see one's visitor doing servant's work; 
and besides poor Gerakline can't cook or make a bed any more 
than the girl who has ' never been out;' and at the same time she 
is nothing like so indifferent as I am to eating, and ' all that sort of 
thing.' And then to get on with 'the rowans,' and her here, was 
impossible. When I was not cooking in the kitchen, or in some 
way providing for the present moment, I must 'lie down' ami 
have my feet rubbed. By myself I get on quite nicely with the 
little maid, who, now that I have got her to tidy herself, and that 
she is no longer frightened, has developed a curious likeness to your 
sister Jane, which makes me feel quite friendly towards her. Not 
being to keep her, I put off no time in training her, but use her 
up to the best advantage. To-day, for example, she has been clean- 
ing out the kitchen, closets, and presses, where many an abomina- 
tion came to light, showing new cause why the ' no-iuterfereuce ' 
principle should never more get ' carried out ' in this house, or any 
house of which I am the mistress. To-morrow, or next day, I 
shall probably hear from Miss Darby something final as to the Es- 
sex girl she had in view for me. I feel it very kind of you to offer 
to take me away, but I am perfectly clear that I should be here 
rather than anywhere else just now. In the first place, locking up 
the house would be a foolish risk to run; there are more loose peo- 
ple about here now than when we did so formerly, and we are 
known now to be better worth robbing than we were formerly 
thought to be; and even then it was 'a tempting of Providence 
only to be repeated on necessity. I should like very ill to have the 
house robbed; there are so many odds and ends in it that no money 
could replace. Secondly, not foreseeing (how could I?) that I was 
to be left sole agent of my own will and pleasure, I commenced in 
the first week of your absence a series of operations, which I feel 
my housewife honour concerned in bringing, without help or with 
such help as I can get, to a more or less satisfactory close; what I 
have tumbled up and pulled down must be restored to at least the 
habitable state 1 found it in, and no Brownie, I guess, would do 
that for me if I put the house-key in my pocket and went away. 
Thirdly (a woman has always three reasons), flying from the pres- 
ent inconvenience would be only postponing it; a servant must be 
found and set a-going in ' the right way ' some time; and when bet- 
ter than now, when you are out of the road of being bothered by 
the initiatory process? Would it be preferable to arrive at home, 

1 A servant who had given trouble, 

3 Letty , an intrusive, stupid, ugly, fat Berlin Jewess, coursing about on 

the strength of sending windy gossip to the newspapers then. 



hungry and travel-wearied, with our door-key, to usher ourselves 
into a dark, cold, foodless house, and go out the first thiug next 
day to hunt up a servant? If Craik's woman could have been en- 
gaged for any particular time, that would have met the last objec- 
tion. But my belief is that they will take her to Ireland and keep 
her there as long as she will stay. At all events, I can elicit no 
particle of certainty about her; and indeed, feel it indelicate to 
press them on the subject. So now, ' compose yourself,' and trou- 
ble your heart no further with my ' difficulties.' When I am not 
too ill for stirring about, as I have not been to-day, and do not 
mean to be for some time to come, and when you are not there to 
be put about by them, I make as light of material difficulties as any 
woman I know; find them, in fact, rather inspiriting; it was en- 
tirely the moral disturbance from Elizabeth that agitated me so 
absurdly at the commencement of the present mess. 

Friday morning. — So far I had written last night when the clock 
struck twelve, and Nero, with his usual good sense, insisted on my 
going to bed; he had gone half an hour before by himself, and es- 
tablished himself under the bedclothes; but he returned at twelve 
and jumped till I rose and followed him. 

I have hardly anything to tell you of the outer world. Mazzini 
is back from Paris, was here on Tuesday. The revolution in 
Paris is postponed for the moment. It was anticipated that the 
President's reception 'would have been, through — what shall I 
say? — bribery and so on, more enthusiastic ' ; then the Presi- 
dent would have been emboldened to venture his great coup, 
and the Communist party would then have tried conclusions 
with him. As it is, these 'have nothing to fight against,' which 
is surely very sad. Another concert ' had come off the night be- 
fore, in which, at the hour of commencement, not a performer 
had arrived, nor for half an hour after. Then all the gas 
went suddenly out; then 'a very fat — what shall I say? — drunk 
woman fell on Mazzini's neck and almost stifled him, upon my 
honour.' Then the principal singer did not come at all, and had 
to be brought par vive force 'in a state of horrible drunkenness,' 
and was only sobered by Mazzini's taking his hand and ' appealing 
to his patriotism. ' Then Mario and Grisi arrived for the last act 
without their music. My late difficulties dwindled into insignifi- 
cance beside those of Mazziui with that tremendous concert — ' but 
there will be much money.' 

Anthony Sterling came up on Wednesday, and took Gerakline to 
the railway at night, I not feeling at all up to taking her myself. 
Next morning he was to start for Devonshire to have a week's 
yachting with Mr. Trelawny. 

Count Reichenbach started for Belgium the end of last week, as 
mournful-looking as he came. I have seen no one else lately ex- 
cept Mrs. and Miss Farrar, who called on Tuesday, I think; the 
old lady in a state for having her patriotism appealed to (it struck 
me), and the young one very pale, ' needing some outing,' she said, 
and was to start on a yachting expedition this day. I never thanked 
you, I verily believe, for the heather, or the peacock's feather, but 
they were carefully preserved nevertheless. 

I think they must have an empty room at Maryland Street just 
now, Helen being still in Scotland. 

Affectionately yours, 

J. C. 

I am sure the Nation 1 * miscarried through no fault of mine. 
After the fate of the former week's Leader, I was very careful to 
put up the paper firmly, and it was posted in Chelsea on Monday. 



LETTER 129. 

To T. Carlyle, Cowbridge, S. Wales. 

Chelsea: Friday, Aug. 23, 1850. 

My dear, my dear, my dear!— I sent a long letter off yesterday, 
knowing that for the next few days I should have something like 
the sack of Troy on my hands. The sweeps are here, and the 
whitewashes, and the carpet-beaters! and myself is at this moment 
all over breadcrumbs, from cleaning the parlour paper, and— and 
— and — . Even Nero has the consideration to leave off jumping for 
things, and has retired into 'a place by himself.' 3 

And now 'comes to pass,' 4 a poor son of Adam 5 in want of a 
bathing-cap ' by return of post, 'and none nearer than Albemarle 
Street will please him! Well, I will go after the cap, his hair being 
so long; but for writing, it cannot be asked of me under the present 
distracting circumstances. Only a word of thanks for your long 
letter. Don't mind length, at least only write longly about your- 
self. The cocks that awake you; eveiything of that sort is very 
interesting. I hasten over the cleverest descriptions of extraneous 
people and things, to find something 'all about' yourself 'all to 
myself.' But I must not dawdle. 

Your affectionate 

Jane Carlyle. 



1 In aid of some Mazzini fund, no doubt. 

1 Newspaper (Irish). 

3 misanthropic joiner in Dumfries, whom we had heard of. 

1 Mazzini's sweep! (supra). » Carlyle himself.— J. A. F. 



72 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE, 



LETTER 130. 

Left Wales, intending Gloucester, Liverpool, Scotsbrig. Never 
saw the good Redwood again. He died within a year. I still re- 
member him with grateful affection — the thoroughly honest soul. 
First station (poor Redwood's and railway's blame) had to waste 
four hours in reading, on the grass. Chepstow; Gloucester streets 
on a Saturday night. George Johnston (Ecclefechan schoolmaster), 
unsuccessful visit rather. Break off for Birmingham — Sunday 
night. To Liverpool next day — Ohe ! — T. C. 

To T. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 

5 Cheyne Row : Friday, Aug. 30, 1850. 

My poor dear! — That was the worst journey, 'but one,' I ever 
read of. You can perhaps guess the exception. One good thing 
will come of it, I hope; and that is a certain sympathy with 
Quashee! You will be more disposed henceforth to grant to your 
black brother the compensation of unlimited pumpkins! Such is 
indeed the only benefit that I. ' as one solitary individual,' ever get 
from being made excessively miserable in any particular way; it 
develops a new sympathy in me for another class of human suf- 
ferers. In all other respects, I should say that being made exces- 
sively miserable is not for one's soul's good at all, but the reverse. 
Natures strong and good to begin with (that is, the exceptional 
natures), may be ' made perfect through suffering.' When one can 
digest it, I daresay it goes to fibre ; but where the moral digestion 
is unhappily weak, the more miserable one is, the more one grows 
— 'what shall I say? — bad, upon my honour! ' 

But you would rather be told, is the new maid come? Yes. She 
arrived yesterday unexpectedly early. Eliza, the young person, 
who has been ' doing for me,' intended to have her "kitchen seduc- 
tively clean for the stranger, and had just tumbled everything up, 
and swashed the floor with fresh water, when her successor came 
to hand, with plenty of nice trunks; and we had to shut her up in 
the spare room with some sewing (one of her accomplishments is 
'needlework'), until she could rind a dry place below for the sole 
of her foot! ' With the best intentions,' &c. ! I will venture no 
opinion of her on such short observation, further than that she 
looks, though rather youthful, perfectly 'respectable,' and that her 
manners are distinguished ! so self-possessed, and soft-voiced, aud 
calm, as only English people can be ! 

The second volume of Dr. Chalmers is come, very bulky, this 
one weighs an ounce over the two pounds, or I would have sent it 
at once by post to your mother, who, I think, got the first volume. 
There is also come a novel, called 'Alton Locke,' which I flung 
aside in my worry, as not readable; but now I hear from Geraldine, 
whom the 'Athenaeum' has invited to review it, that it is the novel 
of young Kingsley; and, though ' too like Carlyle,' a production of 
astounding merit; so I shall fall on it some evening. 

For the rest, I have nothing to tell, except • goot look' has not 
returned to me yet from 'the Orient;' I surely never had such a 
run of provoking things 'since I kent the wori! ' but it will 'come 
all to the same ultimately,' one does hope. 

From the Wednesday night, when Geraldine went off with An- 
thony Sterling, I had no speech with any one till Sunday, then I 
made a call at Miss Wynne's; no one had been here; and for me, I 
cerco nessuno. Then, again, I was silent, till Tuesday evening; 
when Craik came, and insisted on playing at chess with me. I 
beat him three games in no time, and he went away heavy and dis- 
pleased. The only person since was Anthony Sterling, yesterday. 
rather bored by his yachting expedition. His wife was to return 
to Knightsbridge last night, and he intended to take her to Head 
ley; where Mrs. Prior is coming or come, on a visit of indefinite 
duration. The Irish business is going on towards a law-suit, per- 
haps the best for Authony that could come of it. The possession 
of more money will only add to his troubles; but going to law for 
his rights will be an excitement for him, as good as any other. 

Kindest regards to them all at Scotsbrig. 

Ever affectionately yours, 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 131. 

'For virtue ever is its own reward.' So had a young tragic 
poet written, but his critical friend objected, argued, <fcc. ; upon 
which the poor poet undertook to make the line — 'For virtue, 'ifcc, 
' unless something very particular occur to prevent it.' — John Mill's 
story. 

'And be buried her beautiful, ma'am,' said a certain housemaid 
to her once. 'Cockney idea of a future state.' — Allan Cunning- 
ham. 

' If so obscure a person,' &c— Lady Waldegrave, of herself. — 
T. C. 

To T. Carlyle, Esq. , Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea : Monday night, Sept. 2, 1850. 

Yes indeed, dear, a letter from you on Saturday night would 

have been more to my purpose than the lot of newspapers, which 

I never look at except for ' a bird's eye glance at the leader, just to 

see how the creatures 'get through it,' and more to my purpose 



than even the new 'Copperfield.' which came at the same rush, and 
which to this hour remains uncut; the former one having given me 
no feeling but remorse for wasting mortal time on such arrant non- 
sense. But on Saturday night there came no letter: both your 
letters arrived together this morning, puzzling me extremely which 
of them to open first. It is much to be wished that one had a post 
that knew what it was doing again; and law-makers that knew 
what they were doing. If I were the Government, I should feel 
rather ashamed of making regulations one month and unmaking 
them the next; but ' folk maun do something for the bits of bairns' 
(as Adam Bogue ' said when reproached with ruiuing himself in 
racehorses). 

Before you receive this I hope your mother will have got the 
volume of ' Chalmers.' I found on inquiring of the postmaster in 
Piccadilly, when I posted my last letter, on my way to the library, 
that books of any weight could be sent by post, at the rate of six- 
pence to the pound; so I despatched the bulky concern to-day, 
with nine blue stamps, and all the newspapers at the same time, 
deferring the writing of my own letters to the evening, partly be- 
cause I thought you had literature enough by one post, and partly 
because 'I felt it my duty' to go and ride all the forenoon in an 
omnibus, instead of aggravating the sickuess I was feeling by 
writing or indoors work. 

On my return I learnt from Emma that 'a gentleman in a car- 
riage with two servants' had been here — names are a thing she 
does not at all meddle with — but a ' Pendennis ' on the table told 
me that Darwin bad returned, the first of the Romans! Yesterday 
I had Elizabeth Pepoli for three hours. I wondered at the length 
of her visit, and wondered at the softness of her manner; to-day 
the whole thing is explained; it was our last meeting! I asked her, 
' When are you going? ' and she answered, ' Soon, but don't let us 
speak of that.' 'Well,' I said at parting, 'I shall go to you on 
Tuesday or Wednesday.' To-night is come a note saying, ' Don't 
come here, dear Jane, for you will not find me! ' Alas! what a way 
to parti a saving of emotion certainly to both; but should we never 
meet again, as is most likely, some farewell words would have been 
a comfort for the survivor "to recall. 

Pepoli is in depths of tribulation at present, through 'something 
very particular ' having occurred to prevent his virtue (in the case 
of old Manfredi) being ' its own reward.' (Is it uot always through 
the virtue on which one piques oneself that one gets over the 
riugers in this life?) He would take a painter into his house, 're- 
gardless of expense,' and of the comfort of his wife; and having 
played out that freak of princely generosity without justice, and 
old Manfredi being 'eventually' dead, and 'buried beautiful,' the 
Manfredi relations in Bologna ('if so obscure a person can be said 
to have relations ') institute a prosecution against Pepoli, for hav- 
ing dishonestly appropriated, and made away with, immensely 
valuable pictures belonging to the old man he pretended to pro- 
tect! ('The female Satyrs suckling their young' was the best of 
these pictures, Elizabeth says, and was sold for ten shillings 
to keep Manfredi in brown sugar which he licked.) The idea of 
figuring as a swindler in his native town has taken possession of 
Pepoli's whole soul, and caused the cholera; but the worst result 
is, that it has decided him to return to Bologna instead of settling 
in Ancona, where Elizabeth anticipated fewer disgusts. John Fer- 
gus is ' better, but far from well yet.' 

What a dismal story is that of the Curries! Poor old man! he 
will surely die soon; the best that could be wished for him! 

Passing along Paradise Row the other day, I found two mutes 
standing with their horrid black bags at Maynard's, the butcher's, 
door. There was a hearse too. with plenty of plumes, and many 
black coaches, and all the people of the street seemed turned out 
to look. ' Is old Mrs. Maynard dead?' I asked the omnibus con- 
ductor, surprised; fori had seen the long son at our door in the 
morning as usual, and had heard of no death in the family. ' Oh, 
no, not the old lady, it is the son George!' the handsome young 
man that has latterly come for orders with the cart. On the Thurs- 
day he had come and I shook my head at the window, and he 
touched his hat aud drove on. That same day he had 'three fits,' 
which left him delirious; on Sunday he died, and there, on the day 
week that I had seen him, was he getting himself buried! His 
brother tells me that although he 'would work to the last,' it was 
'a happy release; ' that for years he had been suffering horrors 
from disease of the liver, but he wouldn't give in, for he was as 
fine a lad as ever breathed, the tall butcher said, with a quivering 
mouth. Just think! going round asking all the people what they 
wanted for dinner, and return home to die! 

I think the new servant will do; she looks douce, intelligent, 
well conditioned. Very like Lancaster Jane (if you remember 
her), with a dash of Ann and of Phcebie Baillie! She is not what 
is called 'a thorough servant,' but that will be no objection to sig- 
nify, as I am not 'a thorough lady,' which Grace Macdonald de- 
fined to be one ' who had not entered her own kitchen for seven 
years.' I must say, however, that, so far as I have seen her yet, I 
have not discovered wherein she falls short of the servants who give 
themselves out for 'thorough.' Yet she is only twenty, and for 
the last two and a half years has been acting as nursemaid! How- 
ever she may turn out' I am certainly under great obligations to 

1 A Haddington farmer. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



73 



Geraldine's old Miss Darby, for having hunted up this girl and 
taken much trouble to 'suit me, 'in a situation that was really very 
desolate, my state of weakness at the time considered. But all is 
going on decently now again. 

And so, good night, for it is time I were in bed. Love to your 
mother and the rest. 

Ever yours affectionately, 

Jane W. Cablyle. 

Pray do not go ahead in milk diet too impetuously ' In every 
inordinate cup the ingredient is a devil ' — even in an inordinate cup 
of innocent milk. 

LETTER 132. 

To T Carlyle, Esq., Scotsbrig. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Wednesday. Sept. 18, 1850. 

1 'If the buttons be here on Wednesday they will be in abundant 
time.' I should think they would! and 'don't you wish you may 
get them?' Why, how on earth could I have I hem there on Wednes- 
day, unless, indeed, I had immediately last night, after reading 
your letter and swallowing my tea, dashed off in an omnibus to 
Regent Street, by dark; and then, having bought perhaps yellow 
buttons for drab ones, posted them before my return to Chelsea? 
One is capable of such acts of devotion to save ' a man's life, or 
even his watch! ' But merely to expedite his buttons? hardly! 

I shall go now, however, when I have written a bit; for I am 
able to go out again, without risk. The town seemed to come mo- 
mentarily alive yesterday, like a blue-bottle on an unseasonable 
winter's day. I was just finishing the nailing down of the library 
carpet — ' Still that to do,' you think, ' after nearly two months of 
earthquaking? ' Yes; and it could not have been got done sooner, 
under the circumstanees, by the exemplary Martha Tidy herself I 

Ah, that is the mystery 
Of this wonderful history. 
And you wish that you could tell. 

I have a fine misadventure about the library also to reveal to you; 
but that and my other various misadventures shall forma Chelsean 
night's entertainment, when sufficiently remote to be laughed over. 
So I decided some weeks ago, when I saw the part your ungrateful 
' Destinies ' had taken against me. that it would be better to keep 
my squalid difficulties to myself till I could ' take a bird's-eye view ' - 
of them in the past tense, and work them up, at my ease, into a 
conversational ' work of art.' But I was going to say that just as I 
was finishing the above-mentioned job, I was surprised by the rare 
sound of a knock and ring, and a brisk little voice asking, ' Is 
your mistress within?' Emma came up with much awe in her 
face, and said, 'It is the Bishop of something, I don't know what.' 
Actually* * * * again! He had been brought up, not at his 
own expense, to bear witness that he had married a couple who 
want to be divorced, and deny having been properly married ever. 
'It was a love runaway sort of match.' After an hour and halt', 
he went his way and I returned to my carpet. In five minutes 1 was 
called down again to 'two gentlemen and a lad}'.' 'Don't you 
know their names?' 'No; but there is a coachman and afoot- 
man, and the lady is very stout.' Bunsen, Madame Bunseu, 
and a young German doctor. The lady was formal as usual; but 
Bunsen was really charming. He praised much the pamphlets; 
'already saw them doing much good;' especially he delighted in 
'Jesuitism'! 'Oh! his definition of Jesuitism is capital, so good, 
so good! ' By the by, nobody that I have ever asked about it under- 
stands Bunsen recalled. 

After these came my cousin John to early tea, his second visit 
since he was settled at Kew, three weeks ago. And, lateish, Craik, 
who improves in sententiousness and that universal forgiveness 
which springs from universal understanding. A luck I didn't wait 
for his maid. He now ' thinks of keeping her three months;' and 
she thinks of ' a little shop after.' 

If I don't be off I shall be belated. Nero bids me give his kind 
regards, and wishes you had seen him this morning when he came 
to breakfast, with hair on his face all dyed bright crimson! I 
thought he must have done it himself to improve his looks; till I 
recollected that he was sent down last night to have his face washed; 
he had been rubbing it dry, I suppose, after his fashion, on a piece 
of red cloth that was lying under the table; but the effect was 
startling. Love to your mother and all. 

Your affectionate 

J. C. 
LETTER 133. 

Carlyle was about to return from Scotland. Mrs. Carlyle was 
going on a visit to the Grange. — J. A. F. 

To T. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 

5 Cheyne Row: Monday, Sept. 23, 1850. 

Alas, dear! I am very sorry for you. You, as well as I, are 'too 

vivid;' to you, as well as to me, has a skin been given much too 

thin for the rough purposes of human life. They could not make 

ball-gloves of our skins, dear, never to dream of breeches. 3 But it 

1 So Carlyle had written from Scotsbrig.— J. A. F. 
4 Phrase of old McDiarmid's, of Dumfries. 
8 French Revolution, Tannery of Meudon. 



is to be hoped you will feel some benefit from all this knocking 
about when it is over and you are settled at home, such as it is. It 
does not help to raise my spirits, tor my own adventure, that you 
are likely to arrive here in my absence. You may be better with- 
out me, so far as my company goes. I make myself no illusion on 
that head; my company, I know, is generally worse than none; and 
you cannot suffer more from the fact than I do from the conscious- 
ness of it. God knows how gladly I would be sweet-tempered and 
cheerful-hearted, and all that sort of thing for your single sake, if 
my temper were not soured and my heart saddened, beyond my 
own power to mend them. 

But you would certainly be the better for me to stand between 
you and this new servant, who has as little idea of going on with- 
out * interference' as Elizabeth of going on with it. She is very 
willing, however, and 'not without sense;' only you must give 
your orders in simple unfigurative speech, and one after another. 
If you were to tell her, in the same breath, three things to be done, 
she would fly at them all at one time, and spin round on her heel 
simply. For living, you must confine yourself to broiled chops, or 
fowl quartered, one quarter boiled in soup, another broiled. Mut- 
ton broth is beyond her; and in roasting, she is far from strong. 
We are getting very plausible potatoes, and she boils these pretty 
well. 

I did not find Miss Wynne on Saturday. She had been ' poorly* 
at Dropmore, and was not expected till Thursday; so I shall not 
see her at all. 

I was too late for Miss Farrar after; so I went to her yesterday. 
Miss Farrar could not go on Wednesday after all; ' her brother was 
coming to town on Thursday, and she would not for the whole 
world go away without having seen him.' The old mother had just 

told John and me, before Miss came into the room, that she 

was • detained on account of the means not being procurable before 
Friday!' I intended to go on Wednesday all the same before get- 
ting the inclosed this moruing from Lady A.' 

I have ' the means,' thank God, though Mrs. Farrar and her 
daughter did ask Mrs. White if we didn't live dreadfully poorly! I 
have had no money from Chapman, however. He has not come 
nor sent, and my nouse-money is utterly done, and no mistake. 
But then I flatter myself I have a good many things to show for it. 
All my little accounts are settled, except one, which I leave for you, 
as beyond the limits of my savings; and if you do not approve the 
outlay, I. have a heart above slavery, and will pay it myself out of 
my next twelvemonth's income. But though the house-money is 
done, my own allowance is not. I have still five pounds — might 
have had more if I had not chosen to lay out what you repaid me 
for my ball dress on my own bedroom; a much more satisfactory 
investment, to my ideas! If I find myself in danger of bankraiping 
I will tell you. So do not plague yourself by sending any money 
for the present. I have been interrupted in this note by Mac- 
Diarmid and Colonel Burns. Oh, such a withered up skite poor 
Mac is become. 

I am going to be very vexed at having to leave Nero. 

Ever your 

J. C. 

LETTER 134. 

To T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

The Grange: Thursday, Oct. 3, 1850. 

I have put a lucifer to my bedroom fire, dear, and sat down to 
write, but I feel more disposed to lay my head on the table and cry. 
By this time I suppose you are at home; returned after a two 
months' absence, arrived off a long journey — and I not there! no- 
body there but a stranger servant, who will need to be told every- 
thing you want of her, and a mercy if she can do it even then. 
The comfort which offers itself under this last innovation in our 
life together (for it is the first time in all the twenty years I have 
lived beside you that you ever arrived at home and I away) is the 
greatest part of the grievance for my irrational mind. I am not con- 
soled, but ' aggravated ' by reflecting that in point of fact you will 
prefer finding ' perfect solitude ' in your own house, and that if I 
were to do as nature prompts me to do, and start off home by the 
next train, I should take more from your comfort on one side than 
I should add to it on another, besides being considered here asibe- 
yond measure ridiculous. Certainly, this is the best school that the 
like of me was ever put to for getting cured of every particle of 
' the finer sensibilities.' 

Mrs. was in London yesterday and saw my maid on business 

of her own, and brought back word from her that you were coming 
last night ; and the shouts of laughter, and cutting ' wits,' with which 
my startled look and exclamation, 'Oh, gracious!' were visited 
when the news was told me as we sat down to dinner, were enough 
to terrify one from 'showing feeling ' for twelve months to come. 

Mrs. shan't snub me, however. I am quite as clever as she 

any day of the year, and am bound to her by no ties, human or 
divine. And so I showed her so plainly that I was displeased with 
her impertinent jesting at my expense that she made me an apology 
in the course of the evening. 

And now what is to be done next? You say, stay where I am, 



i Insisting on the old day. Note still extant. ' Lady William Russell and 
her two sons,' &c. &c. 



74 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



as if you were not — easily said, but not at all easily done. It is 
quite out of the question' ray remaining here till the 20th, the day 
Lady A. has appointed for the terra of my visit, doing nothing, and 
thinking of you at home with that inexperienced girl. Who cares 
one doil for me here, that I should stay here, when you, who still 
care a little for me. more any how than any other person living 
does, are again at home? And what good can 'ornament and 
grandeur,' and 'wits.' and 'the honour of the tiling,' do to ray 
health when 'my heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here? ' 
Oh dear! certainly not; I shall keep to my original programme, and 
come home after a fortnight — that will be next Wednesday, when 
you will have had plenty of time to subside from your jumbling, 
and will have exhausted all Emma's powers of cooking: unless you 
are savage enough to wish not to see ray face till the 20th, and 
honest enough to tell me so; or, unless you prefer to accept the in- 
vitation, which Lady A. is again writing to you, to come here after 
you are rested. Yon would be bored here just at present with 

" 's solemn fatherhood, and the much talk and bother about the 

children. But the s depart, sucking-baby and all, on the eighth, 

and after that 1 hear of no one coming but Thackeray and Brook- 

field and Lady Montague. George Bunsen and Col 1 Rawlinson 

are coming, but only for a day or two. Do, dear, 'consult your 
authentic wish,' whether you will join me here, or have me back 
then/; whichever way of it you like best, I shall like best, upon my 
honour. The only very good reason for my staying till the twen- 
tieth, viz. to be 'another woman in the house,' as Lady A. said, 
while men visitors are here in Lord A.'s absence, is done away with 
by the fact of Lady Montague's coming, and Miss Farrar's being to 
stay till the nineteenth. In going next Wednesday, I shall not put 
Lady A. about then the least in the world. At the same time you 
might be better here, perhaps till the twentieth, than in London, as 
Lady A. says you should have this bedroom, which is quiet enough 

— at least, will be — when the children have ceased to 'run 

horses' overhead; and shall have your dinner by yourself at what 
hour you please. 

And so 1 will now go and try to walk off the headache T have got 
by — by what do you think? — crying actually. Prosaic as this letter 
looks, I have not. somehow, been able to 'dry myself up' while' 
writing it. I suppose it is the 'compress ' put on me in the draw- 
ing room that makes me bubble up at uo allowance when I am 
alone. Ever your 

J. C. 

October 5, 1850. 
Thackeray is here — arrived yesterday, greatly to the discomfort 

of evidently, who had 'had the gang all to himself so long. 

First he (Thackeray) wrote be was coming. Then Lady A. put 

him off on account of some Punch-offence to the s; then 

Thackeray wrote an apology to ! then Lady A. wrote he was 

to come after all, and went to Winchester to meet him, and 

sulked all yesterday evening, and to-day is solemn to deatb. In 
fact he has been making a sort of superior agapi mone here, in which 
he was the .Mr. Price, the Spirit of Love; and no wonder he dislikes 
the turn that has been given to tilings by the arrival of the Spirit 
of Punch. Col. Rawlinson comes to-morrow, King-lake with Brook- 
field on the 15th, and a great clerical dinner to the Bishop of Win- 
chester comes off on Tuesday, so that you will happily escape. 
Poor dear little Nero! I am so glad lie knew you, and showed 
himself 'capable of a profound sentiment of affection,' in spite of 
your disbelief. 

LETTER 135. 
To Mrs. Russell, ThornMll. 

5 Clieyne Row, Chelsea: Dec. 31, 1S50. 

Don't the years get to gallop so fast, dear Mrs. Russell, that it 
seems uo longer worth while to take note of them? Since last New 
Year to this one. I seem to have hardly had time enough for one 
good long sleep! To those, however, whom the winter finds with 
no money iu their pockets to buy lire and food, the new winter may 
not look so short; I wonder if to old Mary, for example, time seems 
to By in this way. with ever-increasing velocity? Do you think 
she has any satisfaction in her life? If so, what shame to some of 
us! Poor old soul! as long as the life is in her, 1 fancy she will 
like a bit of finery, especially if sent from London; and so the scar- 
let scarf (!) I semi her, however preposterous a present, you may 
think it, won't have been so ill-judged. 1 wish I were nearer her; 
I could give her plenty of old warm things, that poor people here 
hardly thank me for, and pawn generally for drink; but the car- 
riage of such things costs more than they are all worth, and such 
trifles as can be easily -cut by post are not adapted to the wants of 
a poor old woman. Yet I am sure she likes something coining 
from myself better than she would like the money to buy a N«w 
Year's trifle to herself. So tell her, with my kind regards, to twist 
this scarf several times round her old throat, and to be sure and not. 
strangle herself With it. There is a ribbon for Margaret — the ugliest, 
I must say, that I ever set my eyes on; but I sent my maid to buy 
it. having got a little cold to-day, and this was her notion of the 
becoming! I must put in a cap bender with it to carry it off. The 
sovereign please to distribute for me according to your discretion. 

Things are going on well enough with us for the present. There 



has been no winter hitherto to give me a chance at getting myself 
laid up (for my cold to-day is nothing to speak of), and my head- 
aches have neither been so frequent nor so severe latterly. But I met 
with a horrid accident some weeks ago — banged my right breast 
against the end of the sofa, and lor three weeks the pain continued, 
and so, not being able to get the thing forgotten, I was frightened 
out of my wits for the possible consequences, especially as my 
brother-in-law wrote from Scotsbrig that I was not to go to any 
doctor with it, ' London doctors being so unsafe for making a case 
out of everything, and any meddling with such a thing as this be- 
ing, in his opinion, positively injurious.' There! what does Dr. 
Russell say to such views of the medical profession? The pain is 
quite gone now, however, and I try to think no more about it; but 
it may be excused to me, all things recollected, that 1 have suffered 
a good deal of apprehension from this accident. I have also been 
bothered to death with servants this autumn — have had three in 
quick succession. The first new one roasted fowls with the crop 
and bowels in them! and that mode of cookery was not to our taste. 
The second, a really clever servant and good girl, came to me with 
a serious disease upon her, and bad to be soon sent to the hospital, 
where she is still, after two months; the third and last, thank 
Heaven, suits capitally — but I had best not praise her too much, it 
is 'a tempting of Providence' to ' cry before one is out of the 
wood. ' 

Kindest regards to your father and husband. Tell me about 
your health, and ' the smallest news will be gratefully received.' 
Ever yours affectionately, 

Jane Carlti.e. 

LETTER 136. 
To John Welsh, Esq., Liverpool. 

Chelsea: Jan. 3, 1851. 

'John! Sole uncle of my house and heart!' I have just one 
word to say to rod to-day, viz. that I'll be hanged if I ever give yon 
anything another time, if you are to go on the William Gibson taek 
and instantly set about making 'a suitable return.' I thank you 
heartily for your New Year's gift; but, only, don't do the like of 
that again, uncle of me! I hope the summer will plump out my 
poor scraggy arms into a state adapted for such transparent ele- 
gancies. And now I must simply promise you a long letter; for 
to-day is most unfavourable for writing one. 

There arrived on us yesterday a young heroine of romance, with 
a quantity of trunks and a lady's-maid, who is for the moment 
keeping this poor house and my poor self in a state of utter 
disgust. I had invited her to dine one day, and, if it suited her 
better, to staj over the night. And she has so arranged her affairs 
thai, if she leaves here to-day, it must be to live till next week in 
an hotel (at nineteen). What can one do, then, but let her remain 

— with protest against the lady's-maid. She is Mrs. 's adopted 

daughter, whom you may have heard of. and has just been playing 

the Sultana in India for a year anil < Hi dear, here is her lover 

come to see her, and in a quarter of an hour a prison inspector is 
coming to take Mr. C and me through Pentonville Prison. lam 
bothered to death, ray blessed uncle; so adieu. I will write again 
next week. Your affectionate 

Jame Caeltle. 

LETTER 137. 
To John Wilsh. Esq.. Liverpool. 

Chelsea: Jan. T, 1851. 

Dear, estimable uncle of me, — Have you been reading Thacke- 
ray's ' Pendennis '? If so, you have made acquaintance with Blanche 
Amory ; and when I tell you that my young lady of last week is the 
original of that portrait, you will give me joy that she. lady's-maid, 

and infinite bap-gage, are all gone! Not that the poor little is 

quite such a little devil as Thackeray, who has destested her from 
a child, has here represented; but the looks, the manners, the wiles, 
the larmes, ' and all that sort of thing,' are a perfect likeness. The 
blame, however, is chiefly on those who placed her in a position so 
false that it required extraordinary virtue not to become false along 
with it. She was the only legitimate child of a beautiful young 

'improper female.' who was for a number of years 's mistress 

(she had had a husband, a swindler). His mother took the freak of 
patronising this mistress, saw the child, and behold it was very 

pretty and clever. Poor Mrs. had tired of parties, of politics, 

of most things in heaven and earth, ' a sudden thought struck her,' 
she would adopt this child: give herself the excitement of making 
a scandal and braving public opinion, and of educating a flesh and 
blood girl into tin heroine of the three- volume novel, which she had 
for years been trying to write, but wanted perseverance to elaborate. 
The child was made the idol of the whole house; her showy edu- 
cation was fitting her more for her own mother's profession than 
for any honest one; and when she was seventeen, and the novel was 
just rising into the interest of love affairs, a rich young man having 

been refused, or rather jilted, by her, Mrs. died, her husband 

and son being already dead; and poor was left without any 

earthly stay, and with only 250£. a year to support her in the ex- 
travagantly luxurious habits she had been brought up in. 

She has a splendid voice, and wished tg get trained for the 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



opera. Mrs. 's fine lady friends screamed at the idea, but 

offered her nothing instead, not even their countenance. Her two 
male guardians, to wash their hands of her, resolved to send her to 
India, and to India she had to go, vowing that if their object was 
to marry her off. she would disappoint them, and returned ' to pros- 
ecute the artist life.' She produced the most extraordinary furore 
at Calcutta; had offers every week'; refused them point-blank; terri- 
fied Sir by her extravagance; tormented Lady by her 

caprices; 'fell into consumption ' for the nonce; was ordered by the 
doctors back to England! and, to the dismay of her two cowardly 
guardians, arrived here six months ago with her health perfectly re- 
stored! But her Indian reputation had preceded her, and the fine 
ladies who turned their backs on her in her extreme need now in- 
vite a girl who has refused Sudar Judges by the dozen. She has 
been going about from one house to another, while no home could 
be found for her. The guardians had a brilliant idea — 'would we 
take her? ' ' Not for her weight in gold,' I said; but I asked her to 
spend a day with me, that I might see what she was grown to, and 
whether I could do anything in placing her with some proper per- 
son. The result of this invitation was that alarming arrival, bag 
and baggage, on New Year's Day! 

She has saved us all further speculation about her, however, by 

engaging herself to someone (from shire) who came home in the 

ship with her, and seems a most devoted lover. She told me she 
'had been hesitating some time betwixt accepting him, or going on 
the stage, or drowning herself.' I told her her decision was good, 
as marrying did not preclude either ' going on the stage ' at a sub- 
sequent period, or 'drowning herself;' whereas had she decided on 
the drowning, there could have been no more of it. 

I have my own notion that she will throw him over yet, mean- 
while it was a blessed calm after the fly rolled her away from here 
on Saturday. 'Oh, my dear!' Mr. Carlyle said 'we cannot be 
sufficiently thankful ! ' " Indeed you can have no notion how the 
whole routine of this quiet house was tumbled heels over head. It 
had been for these three days and three nights not Jonah in the 
whale's belly, but th,e whale in Jonah's belly; that little creature 
seemed to have absorbed this whole establishment into herself. 

There is a long story for you, which perhaps you can't take any 
interest in; 1 am sure, however, you would be amused with an ac- 
count of our visit, the other day, to Pentonville Prison, if I had left 
myself time and breath to tell it. ' Oh, my! ' (as old Helen used to 
say) ' how expensive ! ' prisoners costing 501. a year each ! Yi iu may 
fancy their accommodations are somewhat remarkable. In each 
cell I saw a pretty little corner cupboard, on one shelf of which was 
the dressing apparatus — a comb and brush, and small tooth comb! 
— laid on a neatly foldedup towel ; a shaving jug with metal top on 
one side, an artistic soap-box on the other! In one cell I remarked 
a blue tassel, with a bit of steel chain attached to it, huug upon a 
brass nail. ' What is the use of that- tassel V ' I asked the inspector. 
'That tassel, ma'am? why that tassel is — a fancy of the prisoner's 
own; we allow them to have their little fancies!' They all wear 
masks when iu each other's presence, that, should they afterwards 
meet iu society, their feelings may lie spared. They have such 
charming bath-rooms! Each man has a good-sized court all to him- 
self to run about in for an hour at a time; and while we were there 
they all 'went to school,' with books and slates under their arm, 
masked! If any man wishes to have the comforts of life, and be 
taught, and, 'have his fancies,' let him rush out and commit a 
felony ! 

We went to hear their religious teaching in the chapel. An uu- 
der-chaplain stood on the altar with a bible in one hand and a red 
book (like a butcher's) in the other; lie read a passage from the 
Bible, then looked in the red book for the numbers (they have no 
names) whose turn it was to be examined. For instance, he read 
about the young man who came to Jesus, and asked what he should 
do to be saved? Then after consulting the red book he called out, 
'Numbers thirty-two and seventy-eight: What shall I do to enter 
into eternal life? ' Thirty -two and seventy-eight answered, the one 
in a growl, the other in a squeal, ' Sell all that thou hast and give 
to the poor.' 

Now, my blessed uncle, did you ever hear such nonsense? If a 
grain of logic was in the heads of thirty-two and seventy-eight, 
mustn't they have thought, ' Well, what the devil are we taken up, 
and imprisoned, and called criminals for, but just because we take 
this injunction seriously, and help you to carry it out, by relieving 
you of your watches and other sundries.' I should tell you too 
that each prisoner has a bell in his cell ! One man said to some visi- 
tor, ' and if I ring my bell a fool answers it.' 

Uncle dear, good-night. If you and I were the Government, 
wouldn't we sweep such confounded humbug out of creation! 

Ever your affectionate 

Jaxe Carlyle. 

Love to the children. 

LETTER 138. 

End of July or beginning of August, 1851, we went to Malvern 
to the water cure, which was then, and perhaps is still, a prevalent 
delusion among chronic invalids. Dr. Gully, a distinguished pro- 
fessor of the new art, by far the most distinguished then, had prcss- 
ingly again and again invited us. ' Oh, come, lodge in my house ; 



only come and I will cure you! ' Me especially, I suppose, which 
indeed would have suited well two ways had he succeeded {vide 
Lytton Bulwer's flaming pamphlet, and other noneeuses). My own 
faith in water cure was nearly zero, and has not since risen higher. 
But I reflected with myself, 'You will have to try it some day (as 
you had to try that rubbing with hair gloves humbug, though with 
damage). No humbug can prevail among your acquaintances, but 
they will force you to get the means of saying, " Oh, I have tried 
all "that and found it naught!" ' So lying open for a summer jaunt, 
and judging humanly well of Gully, we decided to go; stayed with 
him, as per bargain, a mouth: most humanly and hospitably enter- 
tained; drank a good deal of excellent water there, and for some 
time after tried compressors, sitting baths, packings, &c. Admired 
the fine air and country; found by degrees water, taken as a medi- 
cine, to be the mosi destructive drug I had ever tried — and thus 
paid my tax lo contemporary stupor, and had done with water cure. 

I remember vividly enough our rolling off for Worcester; and 
except (more indistinctly) our parting somewhere, and my arriving 
at Scotsbrig, almost nothing more. My Jeannie (as this letter re- 
kindles into light in my memory (had gone for Manchester; I for 
Scotsbrig, full of gloom aud heaviness, and totally out of health, 
bodily and spiritual. Prussian Friedrich, and the Pelion laid on 
Ossa of Prussian Dryasdust, lay crushing me with the continual 
epiestion, 'Dare I try it? dare I not?' 

The portmanteau I do recollect. It had been flung off at Kendal 
junction by mistake, and next afternoon arrived safe at Scotsbrig. 

Mrs. Gaskell is the novelist, since deceased. Dr. Smith (Angus 
Smith), a chemist of merit and man of much naivete and simplicity, 
is he who. now in Government pay, goes about investigating foul 
atmospheres (mines, factories, cities, slums), and says, 'How foul!' 
— T. C. 

To Thomas Carlyle, Scotsbrig, Ecclcfcchan. 

2 Birchfield Place, Higher Ardwick, Manchester: 

Friday, Sept. 5, 1851. 

Well, really! you don't 'beat us all for a deep thought.' If you 
had lost my address, why not send a letter for me to the care of F. 
Jewsbury.Fire Insurance Office, Manchester? or to the care of Mr. 
Ireland, or any of the many people in Manchester you are in corre- 
spondence with, if you could not risk writing to the care of Miss 
Jewsbury, Manchester, which is address enough for practical pur- 
poses. Round by Chelsea, at second-hand, was a very ' slow ' pro- 
ceeding — " upon my honour! ' Besides, the sight of a letter addressed 
to Geraldine, in John's handwriting, was calculated to give me a 
serious fright. When we came in late last night from Bowden, 
where we had passed the day. and I saw on the table only that let- 
ter for her, instead of the one I made sure of for myself, my heart 
jumped into my mouth, I assure you; and I tore it open without 
asking her leave, and was downright thankful to learn that 'my 
brother had merely found his portmanteau missing.' I hope you 
have recovered it by this time ; it can't be that it is permanently lost? 
If it be irrecoverable, however, you must just try to think how 
much worse it would have been to have lost a manuscript or me? 
that (so far as I am aware) it is but, after all, a question of shirts 
and woollen clothes, which may all be replaced witli a small expen- 
diture of money and patience. I shall be very happy, however, to 
hear that the old portmanteau is safe at Scotsbrig, for ' you are the 
last man in England ' that should, in the course of a kind Provi- 
dence, be visited with such untoward accidents. As I have by this 
time quite forgiven you for coming to go through the form of kiss- 
ing at parting with a lighted cigar in your mouth (!), I am sadly 
vexed at the idea of all this new botheration for you at the end of 
your journey; aud vexed, too, for your mother and the rest, whose 
pleasure iu your arrival would be spoiled for them by your arriving 
iu a state of worry. 

For myself, it seems almost Grahamish, under the circumstances, 
to tell you that I performed my journey in the most prosperous 
manner — even to the successful smuggling of Nero. At the Man- 
chester station a porter held out his hands for the basket in which 
I had him, that I might descend more conveniently ; but I said with 
wonderful calm. ' Thank you— I have something here that I require 
to be careful of, I will keep it myself,' and the man bowed, and 
went for my other luggage. 

I found Geraldine in a much nicer house — with large high rooms 
prettily furnished, really as beautiful a house as one could wish to 
live in; aud she is the same kind little hostess as ever. With her 
old Peggy and a new young girl, she manages to surround me with 
'all things most pleasant in life: ' and I don't know where I could 
be better off for the moment. The first night Dilberoglue and Dr. 
Smith came to tea; the next, Sirs. Gaskell and her husband, and 
Ireland, and young Beruays. All yesterday we spent at Bowden, 
with a Miss Hamilton (who has a history), and to-night we ate to 
drink tea at Dilberoglue's, with the Greek mother and the beautiful 
daughter Calliope. For the rest, I keep up as much as possible 
the forms of Malvern life, splash in cold water, and walk before 
breakfast; though the Manchester atmosphere is so thick that one 
feels to put it aside with one's nose — oh, so thick, and damp, and 
dirty! Still the walk does me good. We dine at two, and I reso- 
lutely abstain from pills — continuing to wear my compressor. I 
went iu search of one to send on to you, but unsuccessfully as yet; 



LETTERS ANT) MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



and I have not had leisure to make one, though I am sure I can, if 
none he procurable at the shops. 

I wrote to Miss Gully since I came here, hut there has not been 
time to get an answer. The more I think of these people the more 
I admire their politeness and kindness to us. I don't remember 
ever in my life before to have stayed a whole month in am'body's 
house, without ever once wishing to be away: Geraldine says, ' My 
dear, it is a fact that speaks volumes. ' 

I am writing under your image — Geraldine has got your large- 
print, in a pretty gilt frame over the chimney-piece in my bedroom, 
facing Ncukomm ; and a little lower between you is — a similar sized 
print of Jesus Christ. 

But what will you be caring for all this that I write if — the port- 
manteau be still in infinite space. Pray write the state of the ca 
long letters are a bore to write when one is in retreat, and I don't 
want you to take any bore on my account; but a short note con- 
corning the portmanteau and your health I cannot dispense with. 

Nero sends his dear little love, and bids me say that since you 
■went his digestion has been much neglected, everybody stuffing him 
with dainties, out of kindness, and no exercise to speak of. He is 
afraid of ending like the king and queen of the Sandwich Islands. 

My kind regards to all at Scotsbrig. 

Ever yours faithfully, 

Jake Carlyle. 

LETTER 139. 

To Mrs. Russell, Thornhill. 

The Grange, Hants: Monday, Dec. 1851. 

My dear Mrs. Russell, — I must appeal to your well-known kind- 
ness to help me out of a little puzzle. I left home on a visit to 
Lord Ashburtou's some four or five weeks ago, intending to go 
back on the day after Christmas; but some people were to be here 
this week, strangers to Lady A., and known to me, and I was re- 
quested to remain another week to make these young people's visit 
more agreeable to them. Thus New Year's Day finds me unpre- 
pared with any little presents for those whom I wish to remind of 
me at this season. There is a town (Winchester) eight miles off; 
but I cannot drive there to procure any things, having caught a bad 
cold in the first week of my visit, which confined me to the house 
the first three weeks as a measure of necessity, and I have gone on 
limiting my exercise since to a walk in the conservatory, and cor- 
ridors, as a measure of precaution. Cold is so easily retaken, and 
it is so miserable to be ill in other people's houses. What I must 
ask of you then is, to be so good as to advance the usual sovereign 
for me, which I will repay with a Post-Office order immediately on 
my return, and then you must buy for Margaret and .Alary a pair 
of warm stockings each, orsome such thing — half-a-crown each you 
may lay out for them, and don't say but. that I sent the stockings, 
or whatever it may be, from London. I am sure you will do this 
for me, without grudging time and trouble. 

I bear very often from Liverpool since that serious illness of my 
uncle's. At present he is pretty well, but his life seems to hang by 
a mere thread now. Every little agitation, such as ' listening for 
the guns of the American steamer, bringinga letter from Johnnie! ' 
produces threatenings of the same sort of attack, and another attack 
will probably be fatal. I wish very much to go and see him once 
more, and must try to manage it early in the spring. Perhaps I 
may be in Scotland again next, year, and surely you will come and 
see me somew.here, if I should not be able to find courage to go to 
Thornhill. A young friend of mine married the Earl of Airlie last 
autumn, and asks me to visit her at Cortachy Castle: and then- is 
an old gentleman, called 'the Boar' in London society, who has a 
beautiful place twenty miles beyond Fart Augustus, who has also 
invited us. And there I should really like to go, to see again the 
places where I went with my mother, 'about thirty years ago. 

We have had a deal of company here since I came, Macaulay 
amongst the rest, whom I had never before seen at any length. I 
used to think my husband the most copious talker, when he liked, 
that was anywhere to be fallen in with; but Macaulay beats him 
hollow! in quantity. 

You need not take the trouble of writing till after I have returned 
and sent the money; but then you must Write me all about your- 
self, and about dear old Thornhill. 

Kiudest regards to your father and husband. 

Ever yours, dear Mrs. Russell, affectionately, 

Jake W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 140. 

This was the year (only first year, alas!) of repairing our house; 
•architect' (Helps's) was ' Mr.'Morgan,' a very honest man, and 
with workmen honest though inexpert; he himself had no talent 
for managing the chaos he created here, and indeed he at length 
fell sick, and left it to end by collapse. My own little heroine was 
manager, eye, iuventress, commandress, guiding head and soul 
of everything; and made (witness this drawing-room, and compare 
it with the original, i.e. with every other in the street) a real tri- 
umph of what without her would have been a puddle of wasteful 
failure. She feared no toil howsoever unfit for her, had a marked 
' talent in architecture,' too — in fact, the universal talent of apply- i 



ing intellect, veracity, and courage to things gone awry for want 
of those qualities. Sly noble darling! few women have had such 
an outfit of talent, far fewer such a loving nobleness and truth of 
heart to urge it into action and guide it there. Meanwhile, to es- 
cape those horrors of heat and dust, I fled (or indeed was dis- 
missed) to Linlathen, to my excellent T. Erskine's, where I mor- 
bidly and painfully stayed three weeks, gentlest and best, of hospi- 
tality able to do little for me. I remember trying to bathe in the 
summer mornings — bad bathing coast. Most of my leisure went in 
translating what" is now the Appendix to Fned?ie7i, vol. vii. of 2nd 
edition.— T. C. 

Mrs. Russell, Thornhill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea : July 13, 1852. 

Dearest Mrs. Russell, — I might be excused for forgetting my own 
birthday this time, and even my own name and address, and every- 
thing about me, except the one terrific fact that I am in a house 
under what is called 'thorough repair.' Having never had to do 
with London workmen, you cannot form any adequate idea of the 
thing. Workmen who spend three-fourths of their time in con- 
suiting how the work should be done, and ingoing out and in after 
'beer,' were not, at least in my day, known in Scotland; and then 
a thorough repair complicated by the altering of chimneys and par- 
titions, and by heat at 82° in the shade, was a wild piece of work 
with any sort of workmen. The builder promised to have all done 
in six weeks, painting included; if he get done in six months it is 
as much as I hope. Meanwhile I run about in the great heat, carry- 
ing my furniture in my arms from one room to another, and sleep, 
or rather lie about, like a dog. just where I see a cleared space. I 
am needed here to keep the workmen from falling into continual 
mistakes; but why Mr. Carlyle, who is anything rather than needed, 
stays on I can't imagine. Nor do I know when I shall get away, 
nor where I shall go. We were to have gone to Germany, but that 
is all knocked on the head — at least for the present. < If you saw 
me sitting in the midst of falling bricks and clouds of lime dust, 
and a noise as of battering-rams, you wouldn't wonder that I 
should make my letter brief. 

The poor little sweetbriar grew through all the east winds, and 
was flourishing beautifully, when heavy rains came and killed it. 
I am vexed, and can't help feeling the sweetbriar's unwillingness to 
grow with me a bad omen somehow. I wonder if you will begood- 
natured and unwearied enough to send me another slip to try when 
the right time comes? 

And now to the business: will you lay out five shillings for old 
Mary in some judicious way for me. and will you give my little 
packet to Margaret, and tell them I still Ihinkof them both kindly? 

1 had a great hope, very vague, but quite probable, that I should 
have gone to Scotland this summer and seen you somewhere. Now 
everything is unsettled with the talk about Germany, and the fact 
of this house-altering. 

Ever affectionately yours, 

Jane Welsh Carlyle. 



LETTER 141. 
T. Carlyle, Linlatlien, Dundee. 

5 Cheyne Row: Friday night, July 34, 1852. 

Ob, my! I wonder if I shall hear to-morrow morning, and 
what I shall hear! Perhaps that somebody drove you wild with 
snoring, and that you killed him and threw him in the sea! Had 
the boatman upset the boat on the way back, and drowned little 
Nero and me, on purpose, I could hardly have taken it ill of them, 
seeing they ' were but men, of like passions with yourself.' But on 
the contrary, they behaved most civilly to us, offered to land us at 
any pier we liked, and said not a word to me about the sixpence, so 
I gave it to them as a free gift. We came straight home in the 
steamer, where Nero went immediately to sleep, and I to work. 

Miss Wilson called in the afternoon, extremely agreeable; and 
after tea Ballantyne came, asid soon after Kingsley. Ballantyne 
gave me the ten pounds, 1 and Kingsley told me about his wife — that 
she was ' the adorablest wife man ever bad ! ' Neither of these men 
stayed long. I went to bed at eleven, fell asleep at three, and rose 
at six. The iwo plumbers were rushing about the kitchen with 
boiliug lead; an additional carpenter was waiting for my directions 
about ' the cupboard ' at the bottom of the kitchen stair. The two 
usual carpenters were hammering at the floor and windows of the 
drawing-room. The bricklayer rushed in, in plain clothes, meas- 
ured the windows for stone sills (?). rushed out again, and came 
no more that day. After breakfast I fell to clearing out the front 
bedroom for the bricklayers, removing everything into your room. 
When I had just finished, a wild-looking stranger, with a paper 
cap, rushed up the stairs, three steps at a time, and told me he was 
ents, by Mr. Morgan to get on with the painting of Mr. Carlyle's 
bedroom during his absence! ' I was so taken by surprise that I did 
not feel at first to have any choice in the matter, and told him he 
must wait two hours till all that furniture was taken — somewhere. 

Then I came in mind that the window and doors had to be re- 
paired, and a little later that the floor was to be taken up! Being 



1 Borrowed, doubtless. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



77 



desirous, however, not to refuse the good the gods had provided 
me, I told the man he might begin to paint in my bedroom; but 
there also some woodwork was unfinished. 

The carpenters thought they could get it ready by next morning. 
So I next cleared myself a road into your bedroom, and fell to 
moving all the things of mine up there also. Certainly no lady in 
London did such a hard clay's work. Not a soul came to interrupt 

me till night, when stalked in for half-an-hour, uncommonly 

dull. ' It must have taken a great deal to make a man so dull as 
that!' I never went out till ten at night, when I took a turn or 
two on Battersea Bridge, without having my throat cut. 

My attempts at sleeping last night were even more futile than 
the preceding one. A dog howled repeatedly, near hand, in that 
awful manner which is understood to prognosticate death, which, 
together with being ' in a new position,' kept me awake till five. 
Ami after six it was impossible to lie, for the plumbers were in the 
garret and the bricklayers in the front bedroom! Mr. Morgan came 
after breakfast, and settled to take up the floor in your bedroom at 
• once. So to-day all the things have had to be moved out again 
down to my bedroom, and the painter put off; and to-night I am 
to ' pursue sleep under difficulties ' ' in my own bed again. They 
got on fast enough with the destructive part. The chimney is down 
and your floor half off! 

After tea I ' cleaned myself,' and walked up to see Miss Farrar. 
She and her sister were picnicking at Hamilton Court; but the old 
mother was very glad of me, walked half-way back with me, and 
gave me ice at Gunter's in passing. I am to have a dinner-tea with 
them next Wednesday. And to-morrow I am to give the last sit- 
ting for my picture." and take tea at Mrs. Sketchley's. And now I 
must go to bed again — more's the pity. 

I shall leave this open, in case of a letter from you in the morn- 
ing. 

Saturday. 

Thanks God too for some four hours of sleep last night. I don't 
mind the uproar a bit now that you are out of it. 

Love to Mr. Erskine ; tell him to write to me. 

Ever yours, J. W. C. 

LETTER 142. 

'Dalwig,' grandson of the famed cavalry general of Priedrich 
the GreaCwas himself a Prussian officer of horse; from Silesia, 
where his rank and possessions were ample; as fine, handsome, 
intelligent, brilliant, and modest a young fellow of his kiud as I 
ever saw. ' Reichenbach ' (once Graf von Reichenbach and his 
neighbour and friend) brought him to us here; where he met Kate 
Sterling, our late John's second daughter, and one of the brightest 
of voting women. Dalwig. much struck with her, was evidently 
deliberating great things; and did, before long, apply formally to 
Captain Anthony Sterling, uncle and guardian, for the 'great hon- 
our and pleasure of making some acquaintance ' with Kate. To 
both of us, who knew him, it seemed precisely the offer that might 
suit beyond all, both for the noble Kate and for her friends, espe- 
cially her sisters ; who were in no society here for making fit 
matches, but who there, in Silesia, having portions of solid amount, 
and being all pretty and amiable, need not fail of marrying well if 
they cared to marry, &c, &c. ; to all which we wished cordially 
well, but kept, and had kept, strictly silent except to one another. 
Abrupt Captain Anthony, now growing elderly, and very abrupt 
and perverse, was not slow in answering, as if to 'a beggarly for- 
eigner,' Ids emphatic No ! To which Dalwig, like a man of honour, 
at once bowed. Bright Kate testified all along a maidenly in- 
difference, maidenly nescience, but was not thought to have an 
averse feeling. 

Poor, ardent, enthusiastic, high-minded Kate! she used to ride 
with me sometimes in those years ; she was to the last passionately 
the friend and adorer of my Jane ; perhaps there hardly was in 
England a brighter young creature; and her fate was cruel — this 
of Dalwig, the turning-point, I rather think ! Being forbidden our 
house (abrupt Captain Anthony being in some tiff of his own here), 
she frequented 'uncle Maurice's,' where no foreigners frequented. 
but only young 'unsound' divines much did. One of these 
. . . . she Sid, on her own footing — ' over twenty-one now ! ' 
— give her hand to : . . . . was at length declared to be con- 
sumptive, and in four or five years died She was very 

beautiful, very high and her»ic ; father and mother both beauti- 
fully noticeable in her, and if as changed into a still finer tertium 
quid both of person and, still more, of mind. — T. C. 

T. Carlyle, Linlalken, Dundee. 

Chelsea: Tuesday, July 27, 1858. 
Now you are not here to paint out the horrors of every kind so 
eloquently, I don't care, the least in the world, about the noise, or 
the dust, or the tumble heels over head, of the whole house. All I 
am concerned about is, to get it rapidly on; which, as builders and 
builders' men are at present constituted, seems pretty much of an im- 
possibility. Yesterday I wrote to Mr. Morgan to take back the third 
carpenter, and bestow him on somebody with more patience and a 

> Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties, &e. (a poor book o£ that time). 
3 By Miss Sketchley (an amateur trying to become artist). 



less correct eye than myself. But it's worse than useless plaguing: 
you, in your cold, clean retirement there, with the worries from 
which you have just fled away. Best you should forget the sound 
of our hammering altogether ; so I will henceforth fight my own 
battle with the house, without saying a word about it. 

Better news for you is. that Lord Ashburton is ' greatly better, 
quite well since the last attack, and gone on to the place in Switzer- 
land.' Such was the answer to a message of inquiry which I sent 
to Bath House on Sunday. ' His lordship had written himself to 
the large housemaid. So all is right in that direction. 

Poor Dalwig is gone away. He came on Saturday with Reichen- 
bach to bid me farewell. I gave him the copy of the ' Life of 
Sterling ' I extorted from you for Mrs. Newton, who never got it ; 
not in memory of Kate I told him, but of myself ; and he blushed 
and kissed my hand, and went away rather sad, but with as manly 
and dashing a bearing as if Kate had been ever so kind. I don't be- 
lieve the girl will ever have such another chance in her whole life. 

There was also here one day a Rev! Llewelyn Davies, Lincoln. 
Do you know such a person ? He asked for me, on hearing you; 
were absent; shook hands with me, sat talking half-an-hour with 
me as if we were friends ; and did all this so coolly and naturally 
that he left me persuaded I had known him some time. Did I ever 
know him V Clough, too. was here last night; and Miss Wilson 
again, to offer me her carriage ' to do any business I might have.' 

She promised to drink tea with me on my return from Sher- 
borne ; ■ where I still mean to go on Friday, and stay till Monday. 
It is a long way to go for so short a time. But I should repent it 
afterwards if 1 did not gratify that poor dear woman's wish to see 
me once more. 

Ever affectionately yours, 

J! W. Carltle. 

LETTER 143. 
T. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea: Thursday, Aug. 5, 1852. 

You recollect, dear, that Macready told me of two routes, recom- 
mending that by Frome as the quickest and least fatiguing; so I 
rendered myself at the Paddiugton station on Friday morning, 
with my night-things in a bag on one arm and my ' blessed' 3 in a 
basket on the other. He gave me no trouble, kept himself hidden 
and motionless till the train started, and then looked out cautiously, 
as much as to say, ' Are we safe ? ' The journey to Frome was 
quite a rest after that morning's work (carrying down all the books 
from the lop landing-place into the back parlour), and I descended 
from the train quite fresh for the thirty miles by coach. 

But when I inquired about the coach to Sherborne, I was told 
there was none. ' A coach passing through Sherborne passed 
through Frome without coming to the station at eleven in the 
morning,' three hours before the time we were at ; 'no other since 
many months back.' My first thought was, ' What a mercy you 
were not with me ! ' my next, that the Macreadys could not, blame 
me for keeping them waiting ; and then I 'considered,' like the 
piper's cow, and resolved not to stay all day and night at Frome, 
but to take a Yeovil coach, which started at five, and which could 
take me, I was told, to a wayside inn within eight miles of Sher- 
borne, and there I hoped to find a fiy ' or something.' Meanwhile 
I would proceed to the town of Frome, a mile from the station, 
and get something to eat, and even to drink, ' feeling it my duty ' 
to keep my heart up by all needful appliances. I left my little bag 
at the station, where the coach came, and set my dog quite free, 
and we pursued our way as calmly and naturally as if we had 
known where we were going. 

Frome is a dull, dirty-looking place, full of plumbers ; one could 
fancy the Bennett controversy 4 must have been a godsend to it. I 
saw several inns, and chose ; The George ' for its'name's sake. I 
walked in and asked to have some cold meat and a pint bottle of 
Guiuness's porter. They showed me to an ill-aired parlour, and 
brought me some cold lamb that the flies had been buzzing round 
for a week — even Nero disdained to touch it. I ate bread, however, 
and drank all the porter ; and 'the cha-arge'* for that feeble refec- 
tion was 2s. M. ! Already I had paid one pound eight and six- 
pence for the train. It was going to be a most unexpectedly costly 
journey to me. But for that' reflection I could almost have laughed 
at my forlorn position there. 

The inn and town were ' so disagreeable ' that I went presently 
back to the station, preferring to wait there. One of the men who 
had informed me about the coach came to me, as I was sitting on 
a bench, and remarked on the beauty of the scene, especially of 
some scarlet beans that were growing in his own piece of garden. 
' Ah,' he said, ' I have lived in London, and I have lived abroad ; 



i Never; nor I. . 

3 Going thither to visit good Mrs. Macready, who was now ill, and, indeed, 
dying. 

3 Dog Nero. 4 Something in the newspaper. 

5 In my first voyage to London (1824, by Lejth smack), a certain very rustic- 
looking. but polite and quiet, old baronet, called Sir David Milne, slept, in the 
same cabin with me: and there and on deck was an amusing human study. 
Courteous, solemn, yet awkward, dull; chewing away the r when he spoke, 
which indeed was seldom, and then mainly in the way of economic inquiry to 
passengers who knew London— what you could do there, see, eat, &c. ; and to 
every item, the farther question: ' And what is the cha-arge (charge)? ■ 



78 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



I have been here and there, backwards and forwards, while I was 
in service with them as never could rest; but I am satisfied now 
that the only contentment for man is in growing his own vegeta- 
ble! Look at them beans,' lie said again. 'Well! to-morrow 
they'll be ready, and I'll be pulling them, and boiling them, and 
eating them — and such a taste! No agriculture like that in Picca- 
dilly! ' Then he looked sympathising!^ at me and said, ' I'm going 
to get you something you'll like, ami that's a glass of cool, fresh, 
clear water: ' and he went away with a jug to his garden and fetched 
some water from a little spring well and a gnat handful of mig- 
nonette. 'There! there's something sweet for you, and here's 
splendid water, that you won't find the like of in Piccadilly!' I 
asked him how it was going with Mr. Bennett? 'Huh! I hear no 
complaints, but I goes to neither one nor other of them, and fol- 
lows my own notions. I finds agriculture the thing!' He would 
have been worth a hundred pounds to Dickens, that man. 

I had the coach all to myself for a while; then a young gentleman 
got in, who did exactly the right thing by me, neither spoke to me 
nor looked at me till we stopped at Castle Carey (Yeovil is pro- 
nounced Youghal, Carey Carry? I grew quite frightened that I 
had been somehow transported into Ireland). There the young 
gentleman went into the inn, and said to me first, ' Excuse the 
liberty I take in asking, but would you take anything — a little wine 
and water?' I thought that very polite; but I was to meet with 
'something more exquisite still' before I got to Sherborne. At the 
' Sparkford Inn,' eight miles from Sherborne, I got out and asked, 
had they a fly? 'Yes, but one of its wheels was broken, and it 
was gone to be mended!' 'Had they any other conveyance that 
■was whole — a gig or cart? ' * Yes, tiny had a nice little gig. and I 
Should have the loan of a cloak to keep me warm ' (the evening 
Was rather chill). So I went in. and sat down in a parlour; where 
an old gentleman was finishing oil with bread and cheese. He 
soon made himself master of my case, and regretted he was not 
going back to Sherborne that night, as then he would have taken 
me in his carriage; and presently he offered something else more 
practical, viz., to try to recover my parasol (my mother's, the one 
she bought with the sovereign you gave her,' and which I had got 
new coveted), left stupidly on the roof of the coach, and never 
recollected till the coach, with its four horses, had thundered past 
the window! If the landlady would tell the coachman about it 
next day, and get it there, he, tin- old gentleman, would bring it to 
Sherborne House. I went into the lobby to tell the landlady, some 
five or eight minutes after the coach had started, and told her in 
presence of a gentleman, who was preparing to start in a barouch- 
ette with two horses. He looked hard at me, but said nothing; 
and a minute or two after I saw him also drive past the window. 
Some twenty minutes after, I started myself, in a little gig. with a 
brisk little horse and silent driver. Nothing could be more pleas- 
ant than so pining through quiet roads, in the dusk, with the moon 
coming out. I felt as I were reading about myself in a Miss Austen 
novel. But it got beyond Miss Austen when, at the end of some 
three miles, before a sort of carrier's inn, the gent Ionian of the 
barouehette slept into the middle of the road, making a sort of 
military signal to my driver, which he repeated with impatience 
when the man did not at once draw up! 1 sat confounded, expect- 
ing what he would do next. We hail halted; the gentleman came 
to my side, and said, exactly as in a book: 'Madam, I have the 
happiness of informing you that I have reclaimed your parasol; 
audit lies here in my carriage ready to be restored!' 'But how 
on earth?' I asked. 'Madam, 1 judged that it would be more 
pleasing for you to take the parasol along with yourself than to 
trust to its being brought by the other gentleman; so 1 just gal- 
loped my horses, overtook the coach as it was leaving this court, 
reclaimed the parasol, and have wailed here, knowing you could 
take no other road to Sherborne, for the happiness of presenting it 
to you! ' — To an ostler — ' Bring the parasol ! ' It was brought, and 
handed to me. And then I found myself making a speech in the 
same style, caught by the infection of the thing. I said : ' Sir, 
this day has been full of mischances for me, butl regard the re- 
covery of my parasol so unexpectedly as a good omen, and have a 
confidence that I shall now reach my destination in safety. Accept 
my thanks, though it is impossible to give any adequate expression 
to my sense of your courtesy!' I never certainly made so long 
and formal a speech in my life. And how I came to make any- 
thing like it I can't imagine, unless it were under mesmerism! We 
bowed io each other like first cousins of Sir Charles Graudison. and 
I pirred on. ' Do you know that gentleman? ' I asked my driver. 
•Never saw him before.' 

I found Sherborne House without difficulty; and a stately, beau- 
tiful house it was, and a kind welcome it had for me. The mistake 
had been discovered in the morning, and great anxiety felt all day 
as to my fate. I was wonderfully little tired, and able to make 
them all (her too) laugh with my adventures. But I must posi- 
tively interrupt this peuny-a-liuiug, and go to bed. It is true to 
the letter, all I have told. 

My two days at Sherborne House were as happy as could pos- 
sibly be with that fearfully emaciated, dying woman before my 
eyes. They were all doing their best to be cheerful — herself as 



1 A sovereign to each of them, on returning home with a pocketful from my 
' first lecture.' Ah, me! 



cheerful as the others. She never .spoke of her death, except in 
taking leave of me; when she took my head in her hand, and 
kissed it, and gave me her solemn blessing, and asked me to come 
again with you, to see William and the children, when she should 
be gone. That was a dreadful trial of my composure. I am so 
glad I went, it pleased her and all of them so much! 

The journey back by Dorchester went all right; and was less ex 
pensive, for I came by the second-class, and so saved the nine shil- 
lings my gig had cost me. It was a weary long way, however, 
from a quarter before nine till half after seven flying along in one 
shape or other, with only ten minutes' delav (at "Southampton). 
M\ only adventure on the road back was falling in with a young 
unfortunate female in the Chelsea boat, the strangest compound of 
angel and devil that I ever set eyes on, and whom, had 1 been a 
great, rich lady. I should decidedly have — brought home to tea 
with me and tried 'to savt .' ' The helpless thought that I had 
nothing to offer her instead alone prevented me. I could not leave 
her. however, without speaking to her, and my words were so 
moving, through my own emotion, that she rushed from me in 
tears to the other side of the vessel. You may feel a certain curi- 
osity to know what 1 said. I only recollect something about 'her 
mother, alive or dead, and her evident superiority to" the life she 
was leading.' She said, ' Do you think so, ma'm?' with a look of 
bitter wretchedness, and forced gaiety that I shall never forget. 
She was trying to smile defiantly, when she burst into tears and 
ran away. 

I made a frantic appeal to the workmen the other day, since 
when we have been getting on a little more briskly The spokes- 
man of them, a dashing young man, whom you have not seen, 
answered me: 'My dear (!) madam, you must have patience, 
indeed you must; it will be all done — some day! ' The weather is 
most lovely. Monsit ur U Tlu rmomilre pretty generally at 70°. 

My health continues wonderfully good. 'Today I dine at the 
Brookfields', for what poor Helen used to call ' a fine change.' 

Ever yours affectionately, 

Jane W. C. 

LETTER 144. 
To T. Carlyle, Esq., ScoUbrig. 

Chelsea: Tuesday night, Aug. 10, 185?. 

Oh, my dear, what a comfortless letter! In your last from Liula- 
then you said you were ' decidedly better,' and now again you seem 
to be again ' all nohow.' I hope it has only been the fag of the 
journey. Don't fret about the house; it is getting on pretty fast 
now, and will be satisfactory when finished. For my part, I am 
got quite used to the disturbance, and begin to like the — what shall 
1 sayv — excitement of it. To see something going on, and to help 
its going on, fulfils a great want of my nature. I have prevented so 
ruauy mistakes being made, and afforded so many capital sugges- 
tions, that 1 begin to feel rather proud of myself, and to suspect I 
must have been a builder in some previous state of existence. The 
painter is my chief delight; be does his work so thoroughly. He is 
only in your bedroom as yet, but be has rubbed it all down with 
pumicestone, till it looks as smooth as paper. And I have never 
been inconvenienced by any smell! Perhaps the house may be habit- 
able a week or two sooner than I guessed, though I hardly think 
the workmen will be fairly out of it sooner. I shall ' see my way' 
better next week. The weather is capital for drying both paint and 
plaster, that is one blessing! My half of the low room is kept 
always tidy; the bedding, and tables with their legs in the air, as if 
in convulsions, which show themselves above the screen, often make 
me laugh. When the noise is very great I practise on the piano! I 
do quite well, in short; and don't see how I can be spared till things 
are done to my mind, and the chaotic heaps of furniture restored to 
their proper places. Decidedly nobody but myself can do that. 

I found your letter to-day on my return from Tavistock House, 
where 1 had gone to see Forster. He is staying there for a change, 
in the absence of the Dickenses. I had promised the Mac- 
readys to go, and tell him about her, and found no time till to-day. 
I went by the boat to Paul's Wharf, like a goose, and found myself 
so far off my destination! Besides, a violent thunder-shower fell 
just as I set my foot on land, and having on a pair of those cheap 
boots I bought a stock of (chiefly paper, Mr. Carlyle!). my feet 
were wet through in two minutes. I went in a shop and bought a 
pair of stockings, then on till I found a good-looking shoe-shop, 
and bought a pair of real boots; left my dripping stockings and 
paper boots with the shoemaker, requesting that when they were 
dry. and not till then, In- would pack them up and send them to the 
care of Forster; and so proceeded on my long walk dry -shod. 
Cleverly managed, don't you think? and ' regardless of expense.' 
Forster was very glad to see me. He is a little less helpless, but 
still on fish diet. I got into a Holborn omnibus after, which left 
me at the top of Regent Street; and then I went to Verey's, and 
had— a beautiful little mutton chop and a glass of bitter ale! That 
is the sort of thing I do! It was my second dinner at Verey's. 
Meat dinners at home are as nearly impossible as can be, and one 
sleeps ill on tea-dinners. The charge at Verey's is very moderate, 
and the cooking perfect. For my dinner and ale to-day I paid one- 
and-fivepence. The day I went to the Foundry I dined at a clean- 
looking shop in the Strand, where I had half a roast chichen (warm: 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



79 



very small indeed), a large slice of warm ham, and three new 
potatoes, for one shilling! It amuses me, all that, besides keeping 
me in health; and for the outrage to 'delicate femaleism,' I am 
beyond all such considerations at present. However. I see single 
women besides myself at Verey's — not improper — governesses, and 
the like. And now good-night; I am off to bed. 

Wednesday. — Ah! it is a tempting of Providence always to con- 
gratulate oneself on the weather ! To-day it ' is pouring hale water 
(as Helen used to say), and has so poured all night. If it weren't 
for the paint and plaster's sake I should have no objection. I called 
at the London Library yesterday on my way home to get Madame 
de StaSl's ' Memoires' for Count Reichenbach. Mr. Donne ' never 
comes out of that end room seemingly. Mr. Jones was ' absent 
three days for a little pleasuring.' The tall young man was on the 
eve of his departure; had ' found on trial of six years that the place 
didn't suit him.' He was going to embark in a silk manufactory at 

Derby — 'a very good opening indeed.' Mrs. H M 

(did I tell you?) left your books and a card for me just before leaving 
town. Dilberoglue might surely call that 'glorious prudeuce!' 
Nevertheless she might have safely relied on her own powers of 
boring me, and on my general indisposition to intrude! God help 
us! I don't know of any fine people remaining except the Farrars, 
who can't get away for fear of their house being robbed. Mazzini 
was here on Sunday morning, and made my hair stand on end with 
his projects. If he is not shot, or in an Austrian fortress within 
the month, it will be more by good luck than good guiding. I rely 
on the promise, ' God is kind to woman, fools, and drunk people.' 

Kind love to your mother and all of them. After going all that 
way to Sherborne for two days, who knows whether I shan't ruu to 
Scotsbrig for two days and see her when she is not thinking of me? 

Ever yours, 

J. W. C. 

If you won't go to Germany alone, and don't much like the no- 
tion, is there no little lodging to be got by the seaside, within reach 
of Scotsbrig's butter and eggs, for two or three weeks, — for your- 
self, I mean? 

LETTER 145. 

T. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea: Saturday, Aug. 14, 1852. 

'With the best intentions always unfortunate.' I was putting 
together my packet yesterday, when Dr. Weber- came, and stayed 
long enough to belate the whole affair. He seemed bent on coming 
up to the immense expectations I must have formed of him. And 
that excessive desire to please was just what I disliked him for. But 
he is clever and gentlemanly, and thoroughgoing, to appearance at 
least, when lookeeKR in front; for the back of his head and neck, and 
all down, has a different character, much less bred, and less intellect- 
ual ; ' the human curve ' 3 not so well defined. He reminds me of a 
statue that had been perfectly polished in front, and left rough-hewn 
behind, to stand with its back to a wall. He gave me the most 
flourishing accounts of Lord and Lady A. And we parted after 
' swearing everlasting friendship ' to a certain very limited extent. 

Your letter came after; and also, alas! came news, through Mr. 
Piper, 4 of the death of Mazzini's mother. The accounts had been 
written to Mrs. Hawkes in two letters. She found them on her 
return from town, where she had been all day. and, opening first 
the letter which told only of a stroke of apoplexy, she rushed off to 
Mazzini with the news. Having returned to her own house, she 
opened the second letter, which, in her agitation, she had not looked 
at, and found it an announcement of death, and so had again to go 
to Mazzini. He is dreadfully struck down, the Pipers say. I have 
not seen him. I wrote him a few lines last night, and took them up 
myself, but would not go to him, though Mrs. Piper thought it 
might be good for him to see me. I am sure there are too many 
bothering him with kindness. 

Kind regards to all. 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane W. C. 

LETTER 146. 

Under way for Germany at last. My first visit. I remember too 
well the base miseries, and even horrors (physical, chiefly), which 
had now begun for me, and did not cease till the voyage did. At 
midnight (August 29 it must have been) I embarked at Leith on a 
small Rotterdam steamer (laden to the lip with iron I found, and the 
uneasiest of kicking little wretches); never sailed in such a craft 
before, or since; rested little, slept worse (except on a bench in the 
Rhine steamboat) till I got to Bonn. Neuberg waiting on the beach 
for me — Neuberg — but not any sleep there either. Pfui! 

Hon. Byng, called Poodle Byng all his days, the Eton name he 
had. 

' Engrush ' for ' ingratiate ' (a very old expression of ours). 

Car il etaittres aimablc, &c. : Robespierre — a Parisian myth which 
G. Lewes used to give us with first-rate mimicry, &c. 



1 Now librarian; excellent old Cochrane dead. 

a Late travelling doctor to the Ashburtons, who are at Salzburg, &c. 
3 Mazzini's phrase. Plattnauer, for fat, was 'losing the human curve. 1 
* Mazzini lodging with Piper. 



Fanny is 'Irish Fanny,' whom I recollect well; she was by nature 
a very good girl (and got full generously treated here, even to the 
saving of her life, I might say), and she did well for ayearor more; 
but after that sank to the common level or below it, and hail to 
disappear like the others. 

'Beautiful enthusiasm.' — Foolish, inflated English lady, of the 
elderly governess kind, who once came to us at Craigeuputtock 
(where we had little need of her), spoke much to her of a 'Ba-ing 
I could love,' ' Brush the down from the cheek of,' &c. — T. C. 

To T. Carlyle, Esq., Bonn. 

Chelsea: Tuesday night, Sept. 1832. 

When I returned from Addiscombe yesterday forenoon, I saw a 
letter on the table, and cut short poor Nero's vehement leaping to 
take it; and lo! it was my own letter from Rotterdam, addressed to 
the London Library, St. James' Square! a fact which puzzled me 
extremely. ' An old man ' had brought it from there, and said ' a 
shilling had been paid for it,' the second shilling the unlucky dud 
had cost. By-and-by I noticed that the envelope had the London 
Library mark on it, and then the small mystery was solved. I had 
written the letter at the London Library, after some hours of wild 
galloping in a street cab to ascertain about the passport: indeed that 
passport affair was as pretty * version of ' Simon Brodie's Cow' as 
any I have lately had on hand. To-day I have to thank you for a 
letter more agreeable to receive than that one. As you have not 
got 'stolen or strayed' hitherto, one may now feel a moderate 
assurance that you will be safely landed at the far end of this 
journey to — what shall I say? — Flaetz ! ' Neuberg being not likely 
either to lose sight of you, or to lose patience with you. 

The Addiscombe programme was only once changed. We went 
on the Saturday instead of the Friday, separately of course; I by 

steamboat and railway. The G s. baby and all, came about an 

hour after me; and an hour after them the Poodle. Mrs. G. 
was as sweet as syrup, and dreadfully tiresome, her husband 
engrushing himself , tres aimabie dans In. sodete, and the baby a 'bit 
of fascination ' seemingly for every one but me. The visit went off 
harmoniously, but I got no better sleep in my entirely curtainless 
bed there than among the bugs at number two.'-' On Monday forenoon 

the G s and I came back together by the railway. Lady A. 

was to come too. and sleep at Bath House, and go to the Grange 

this morning. Mr. G invited me to dine with them the same 

evening; but I preferred a chop and silence at home. He seema 
to be very fond of me, has a perception, I think, that I don't adore 
his wife, and is grateful to me for that. I was engaged to tea at 
the Farrars to-night; but a note came from Annie to say that her 
mother was lying ill with a blister on her back, and her sister 
brought home from a visit she had been making with her nose 
broken, and otherwise all smashed by a dreadful fall. Poor girl! 
I saw her the day before I went to Addiscombe looking so pretty. 

Thursday morning. — At this point I stopped on Tuesday nighty 
the thunder and rain becoming too loud 'for anything.' It was 
still raining violently when I went to bed (in your room — the bed up; 
for the rest, carpetless and full of lumber), so I left only one of the 
windows open; and what with the paint smell, and the fatigue of 
having nailed up all the hangings myself, and the want of sleep at 
number two and at Addiscombe, I took quite ill in the middle of 
the night — colic, and such headache! In the morning I crawled 
down to the sofa in the parlour, and lay there all day, till eleven at 
night, in desperate agony, with a noise going on around me like 
the crack of doom. 3 If it had not been for Fanny's kindness, who, 
when all else that she could do failed, fairly took to crying and 
sobbing over me, I think I must have died of the very horror and 
desolation of the thing; for the plasterers came back yesterday to 
finish the cornice in the new room, and the bricklayers were tramp- 
ing out and in repairing the backyard; and the painter was making 
a rare smell of new paint in my old bedroom; besides the two car- 
penters, into whose head the devil put it to saw the whole day, at 
God knows what, without a moment's intermission, except to 
hammer. I have passed a good many bad days in this world, but 
certainly never one so utterly wretched from mere physical and 
material causes as yesterday. It is over now, however, that bout, 
and I should be thankful to have held out so long. 

In the evening came a note, which I was not up to looking at till 
some hours after, when lo! it was a few hurry-scurry lines from 
John, to say that he and ' the Ba-ing' were actually engaged; they 
wne all well, I was to tell you, and had got your letter. No news- 
paper reached me except the Athenceum, which I supposed had 
been overlooked at Scotsbrig. I hope poor John is ' making a good 
thing of it;' the 'parties' having known each other for fifteen 
years, it is possible they mayn't be marrying on a basis of fiction. 
Reflecting with a half-tragical, half-comical feeling that John was 
just my own age, I turned to another letter still lying unopena 1. and 
found what might have been aproposal of marriage to — niyseu ! had 
you not been alive at Bonn. A man who, having wished to marry 
me at fifteen, and ' with the best intentions proved unfortunate,' and 
whom I had seen but once these twenty years, now ' thought him- 

1 Flatz (Jean Paul's Schmelze). 

a In Cheyne Row, where she had slept once during the repairs in Carlyle's 
own house. — J. A. F. 
» Oh, heavens: How can I endure all that! 



80 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



self sufficiently master of his emotions to dare to tell me that for 
nearly forty years (!) he had loved me with the same worshipful 
love — me, the only human soul who ever possessed the key to his 
locked heart ! ' And they say man is an inconstant animal ! 
Poor fellow ! I am afraid he must be going to die, or to go mad, 
or he would have continued to pursue the silent system, which use 
must have rendered easy to him. The practical inference from all 
this, and a good deal more I could instance, is that the laws of 
nature in the matter of love seem decidedly to be getting themselves 
new made; "the bloom' not to be so 'speedily swept from the 
cheek of that beautiful enthusiasm.' 

You may calculate on having your bedroom quite ready and the 
new room in a cleaned-out state, not papered ; but really that is 
easily to be borne after what has been to bear. The door in the 
parlour has been left as it was, partly because I dreaded to let the 
wretches begin any new mess, and partly because I find the room 
can be made so warm for winter by having the door opened into the 
passage, and the folding-door space completely tilled by the screen. 
Now that I see a probable end to the carpenters and bricklayers, I 
may tell you, without putting you quite wild, that Mr. Morgan has 
been here' just twice since you left home, and neither time have I 
seeu him. The first time I was out at ' the balloon,' and the second 
time was yesterday, when I was on my back in an agony, and 
could not have stood up for anyone. The botheration of hounding 
on the men of such a careless master, and the responsibility of di- 
recting them, you may partly figure. Fanny is the best comfort I 
have had. so willing to fly over the moon for me, and always making 
light of her discomforts. And now I must write a word of con- 
gratulation to John. 

Ever affectionately yours, 

J. w. c. 

LETTER 147. 

John Clerk (Lord Eldin ultimately), of the Scotch ' Court of 
Session,' a man of great faculty and singular, rather cynical, ways, 
and much famed in Edinburgh, was a dilettante in art withal, and 
an expensive collector of pictures. After his long-delayed advance- 
ment to the bench his faculties began to decline, and many stories 
of his outbreaks were current ; e.g., Visitor one day (to Lord Eldin): 
'What a bit of painting you have done there, my lord ! Admira- 
ble! exquisite! Why it reminds one of Titian!' Eldin: 'Titian 
(Tishon) ? Tishon never did the like o't.' Jeffrey's story to us 
(twenty years before). 

At Craigenputtock, foolish man-servant of ours, reporting his 
procedures on an errand to Edinburgh: Called for Mr. Inglis, 
ma'm, Messrs. Donald (Doandle) and Inglis, m'm.' 'Told me 
Inglis was not in, but Mr. Doandle yes, who was all the same as 
Mr. Inglis.' 

To T. Carlyle, Paste Bestante, Dresden. 

Chelsea: Sunday, Sept. 13, 1852. 

As there was already a letter gone to you, dear, and as next day 
was Sunday, when there would be some human quiet, I did not 
answer yesterday by return of post, but went instead to the city, 
where I had business. Indeed, it was well to get out into space 
yesterday, for the plasterers were rushing about like demons, 
finishing off, and clearing away their scaffoldings, &c, and the 
plumbers were once more boiling lead iu the kitchen, to repair 
some spout on the roof, and a note I had written to Mr. Morgan, that 
your brother Alick ' never did the like o',' in point of sarcasm, had 
produced an influx of things perfectly bewildering. And the two 
carpenters, who have been too long together, fell to quarrelling so 
loud, that I had to send the painter to express my sentiments. In 
fact, it was a patent hell here yesterday for any 'lover of quiet 
things.' 1 

In the evening I had a tea-party to wind up with. Had madly 
invited some people to meet a man, who, after all, couldn't come, 
but will come next Tuesday instead. The man was Herzen,- whom 
you have had some correspondence with. He is in London for a 
short time, and was very bent on seeing you; and Saffi, who is 
much with him. asked leave to bring him to me, not as being ' all 
the same as Mr. Doandle,' but as the Hades through whichthese 
people pass to you — or hope to. So I said he might briug him last 
night, and asked Darwin, and the Reichenbachs, and Brookfield to 
meet him — all in this end of a room. There were six of us, and 
we spoke four languages, and it is all to be done over again on 
Tuesday. Herzen is not a German as you fancied him, but a Rus- 
sian; and he is rich, which is indicated by his having gi#en 
Mazzini two hundred pounds for his objects. 

Chapman has told Saffi to write him three articles, one on Italian 
religion, two more on Italian literature; and Saffi is very thankful 
to you. The other Chapman, when I was in his shop the other day 
to get a note from him to Griffiths, 3 made me again the offer of 
'very advantageous terms' for a novel of my own; so I have 
something to retire upon' 4 in prospect, not inferior to 'an old 
washer-woman.' 

1 Basil Montague's account of himself. 

a Big Russian exile and propagandist. = Don't know. 

* Darwin's valet: ' My father, he has now retired, sir, upon,' &c. 



But meanwhile what a pity it is that you can't get any good 
sleep; all the rest would be made smooth for you were that one 
condition granted. It is not only German beds, however, that one 
can't get sleep iu. Three nights ago iu desperation I took a great 
dose of morphia for the same state of things, and was thankful to 
get four hours of something like forgetfulness by that ' question- 
able ' means. I am not otherwise ill, however; that one horrid 
headache I told you of has been my only real illness since vou 
left. 

I had a long, very nice letter from John two days ago. His 
marriage is noi to come off till November or December. He talks 
about it with an innocent faith that is quite touching, and already 
seems to be ' seeing his way ' more clearly than I ever knew him to 
do. Thomas Erskine, too, wrote to me that 'he loved me much,' 
and wished he could see what God intended me for. I answered 
his letter, begging him to tell me ' what God intended me for,' 
since he knew and I didn't. It would be a satisfaction even to 
know it. It is surely a kind of impiety to speak of God as if He, 
too, were 'with the best intentions always unfortunate.' Either I 
am just what God intended me for, or God cannot ' carry out ' His 
intentions, it would seem. And in that case I, for 'one solitary 
individual,' can't worship Him the least in the world. 

I had a visit the other morning from Cooper, the Chartist; 
come, not to pay the five pounds he borrowed, but to ' ask for 
more ! ' You had desired him, he said, to apply to you again, if he 
were again in difficulty ! ! I told him that I ' had none to give 
liim,' and he took the refusal like a man used to it, quite ' light and 
airy.' 

Fanny is really a nice servant; a dash of Irish 'rough and 
ready' in her, but a good cleaner, and a good cook, and a perfect 
incarnation of ' The Willing Mind!' Very tidy too in her own 
person, under all circumstances. An awful complication revealed 
itself two or three days after she came, which she stood by me under 
with a jolliness that Teas quite admirable. When the new-painted 
kitchen was capable of being slept in, she fell to taking the bed in 
pieces to give it ' a good washing.' Anne, who would never be at 
the trouble to look to her bed. pretended, when she did finally take 
it down by my express order, before she went away, to have 
found 'nothing worth mentioning;' 'just four bugs.'" and these 
'very small ones,' like the girl's illegitimate child. "Well! I was 
sitting writing here, when Fanny came and said, 'Do step 
down, ma'am, and see what I have kept to show you; ' and when I 
had gone down, not knowing what she had been at, there lay her 
bed all in pieces, and beside it a large basin of water, containing 
the drowned bodies of something like two hundred bugs ! ! The 
bed perfectly swarmed with these ' small beings;' was in fact im- 
pregnated with them beyond even my cleansing powers. We 
gathered it all up, and carried it out into the garden to be sold to a 
broker, who is coming for certain rubbish of things; and I went 
the same day and bought a little iron bedstead for the kitchen, for 
one pound two-and-sixpence. The horror of these bugs quite 
maddened me formany days ; and I would not tell you of them at 
i he time, that you might not feel them prospectively biting you ; 
but now I think we are ' quite shut ' of them!' The painter's con- 
solation, that he ' knew fine houses in Belgrave Square where they 
were crawling about the drawing-room floors ! ' did not help me 
at all. 

The poor white cat no longer gives offence to Nsro; I suppose 
she 'couldn't stand the muddle,' like that, girl who went away into 
infinite space two weeks ago. Darwin says, if I can put up with 
'a cat with a bad heart,' I may have his. 'That minds me '(as 
Helen used to say) of an Italian, living with Mazzini at present, 
who is beating Saffi hollow iu ' the pursuit of English under diffi- 
culties;' sitting down by some Englishman the other day, he said 
' fluently,' ' Now let we have a nice cat together! ' (chat). 

How disappointed poor Bolte will be that I am not along with 
you! I will write to her one day, 

Mr. Kenyon and Browning left their cards for me yesterday. I 
heard at Addiscombe that Macaulay was ill of some mortal disease, 
but the information seemed vague. Thiers is expected at the 
Grange the first of November, ' to stay till they come to London, 
and live on at Bath House after.' And now, a Jew, a Jew! for I 
have still some writing to do before I go out: a letter to Geraldine 
in the Isle of Man, and one to John. My love to Neuberg, and bid 
him ' be strong.' u 

Affectionately yours, 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 148. 
To T. Carlyle, Poste Bestante, Berlin. 

20 Hemus Terrace, Chelsea: Sept. 25, 1852. 
By this time, dear, you will have got my letter to Dresden. I 
wrote there according to your first instructions. Since then I have 
been rather pleased that uncertainty about your whereabout afford- 
ed me a fair excuse for observing silence. In all my life I was 
never in a state more unfavourable to letter- writing; so ' entangled 
in the details,'* and so continually out of temper. I have often 



1 Manchester phrase ; should be ' shot,' as in Annan dale. 
3 John's phrase. 






LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



said that I couldn't be at the trouble to hate anyone; but now de- 
cidedly I hale one man — Mr. ! His conduct has been perfectly 

shameful; not a promise kept, and not even an apology made for 
breaking them. I have ceased to write to him. or send any mes- 
sages to him. I merely pray God to ' very particularly damn "him. ' ' 
The carpenters, bricklayers, and plasterers are all gone out of the 
house; there are still some odds and ends for the carpenter to do, 
and the bricklayer will be outside; but the only work doing for the 

last week has been painting. And though Mr. promised that 

two more painters should be sent to help the one already here, that 
promise has gone ad phures. Neither will he send back the paper- 
hangers to finish in the staircase. With this one painter it was im- 
possible to do all that was needed before your return. So I have 
had to give up the painting of the lower rooms — too thankful to 
get them thoroughly cleaned once more, and refurnished. Fanny 
and Mrs. Heywood were two days washing the old paint, while I 
cleaned the paper; and two days more it took us to bring the fur- 
niture to its old condition. The new room is cleaned out, and has 
the old furniture in it; and, though sufficiently bare-looking, will 
not be uninhabitable during the winter, ami when it is papered and 
furnished prettily, it will be a very fine room indeed. Chalmers '- 
said, with a look of envy, that we couldn't have got a house with 
such a room in it under a hundred and fifty pounds a year. 

The new bedroom upstairs is still representing the ' belly of 
Chaos,' all things thrown out of their old places finding refuge 
there, but my old bedroom will be 'better than I deserve' 3 till the 
other is ready. The bed is up there, without curtains, but the work 
of rehabilitation is going on in it; so that it will be ready for sleep- 
ing in, when one can safely sleep in the house at all; which is not 
the case at present, the new paint in the staircases poisoning the 
whole house. And your bedroom! Ah! that has been the cruelest 
cut of all. I bad it painted the first thing, that it might be well 
aired for 3'ou; and the presses you wished for, which they would 
not make on the spot, but must have made at the workshop, were 
ordered, and promised to be all painted there to save us the smell; 
and, behold! after keeping me up witli this delusion for six weeks, 
they bring them home in raw wood — declaring they could not be 
painted till they were fixed up. And so that room, where I had 
been sleeping for a week, had to be again abandoned. I could not 
try the sofa in the parlour again, for the passage was all in wet 
paint, and I felt myself growing quite ill; got up every morning 
with a sick headache, and had got back my old sickness through 
the day, which I had hoped was gone for good. So there was no 
fcense in staying on till I took a nervous fever, or some such thing. 
jl went off then on a new hunt for lodgings; and found a decent 
I little apartment next door to Mrs. Thorburn, whose house was fully 
let. I have the ground floor, and my bed is quite free of ' small 
beings,' an unspeakable mere}'! Indeed, it is a very comfortable 
little^bedroom, though feebly furnished; and the people very decent, 
quiet people. I go home to breakfast every morning, and work 
there very hard till dinner-time — two o'clock, and for at. hour after, 
or as long as I can bear the smell ; and theu I come back here to 
early tea, and spend the evening in pure air. The quantity of work 
it takes to restore order at Cheyne Row, and repair the ruin of that 
general upturn, is perfectly incredible. Three Sittings, they say, 
is equal to a fire; but a ' thorough repair' is equal to three fires. 

Oh, dear, in case I forget Massou! Masson is quite frantic at 
having received no testimonial 4 from you. The election takes 
phice on the fifth; so pray try to write to him in time. I promised 
to tell you his ardent wish as soon as I knew where to bit you with 
a letter. 

I see hardly anybody; — going nowhere. Dr. H has called 

four tim«s (!) without finding me; two of the times I was in the 
house — au secret. Darwin is into his new house, and now off to 
Shrewsbury for a little while. The Parrars are gone to Malvern. 
Poor Mrs. Macready is gone; died at Plymouth on the eighteenth. 
Miss Macready wrote me a long, most kind letter, telling me that 
till her last hour she ' loved me much.' Her life had become too 
suffering, it is best that it is over. 

I should like to have seen Gothe's and Schiller's house with you. 
In fact your travels, though you make them out rather disagree- 
able than otherwise, look to me quite tempting. 

I have given you a good dose of the house this time; and, be- 
sides that, I have really no news worth telling. A. Sterling came 
one day; returned from Scotland, and on the road to Cowes — a 
dreadfully corpulent black Werter. A letter from John would be 
lying for you at Dresden with mine, so I need not tell his plans. 
I hope I shall like this new sister-in-law. He seems to think I have 
as much share in marrying her as himself has. 

John Welsh has been made much of at Belfast, and complimented 
in public by Colonel Sykes. Hj jent me a Belfast newspaper. Oh! 
1 had nearly forgotten — Lady Stanley has been in town, and sent to 
ask when she could find me. or if I would come to her. Drank tea 
with her — went and came in omnibus, but having Mrs. Heywood 



81 
I am 



1 Old McTurk, on paying his reapers at evening (who had taken to ' kemp,' 
and spoiled him much stuff), said to each, with the 2.9. (ir/., ' God damn you! ' 

and to one old woman (originator of the thing), ' And God particularly 

you, ye b ! ' 

a Rich man of next door; and endless builder, renovator, and decorator of 
No. 1. 3 Coleridge. 

* London professorship ; I sent him one from Eerlin. 



with me by way of lady's-maid. And now, good-night, 
very tired ; and the tireder I am, the less I sleep. 

Y'ours affectionately, 

Jake Carlyle. 

LETTER 149. 

To T. Carlyle, British Hotel, Unter den Linden, Berlin. 

Chelsea: Oct. 5, 1859. 

I write, dear, since you bid me write again ; but upon my honour 
it were better to leave me silent ; all the thoughts of my heart just 

now are curses on Mr. . I have not a word of comfort to give; 

I am wearied and sad and cross; feel as if death had been dissolved 
into a liquid, and I had drunk of it till I was full! Good graciousl 
that wet paint should have the power of poisoning one's soul as 
well as one's body ! But it is not the wet paint simply ; it is the 
provocation of having an abominable process spun out so intermin- 
ably, and the prospect of your finding your house hardly habitable 
after such long absence and weary travel. Never in all my life has 
my temper been so tried. So anxious I have been to get on, and 
the workmen only sent here, seemingly, when they have nowhere 

else to go, and Mr. dwindled away into a myth! Not once 

have I seen his face! I will have your bedroom at least in order 
for you, and if the smell of the staircase is too bad, you must just 
stay the shorter time here. Lady A. wrote to invite us to the Grange 
on the fifteenth, for 'a long visit,' and I have engaged to go — my- 
self for a week or ten days; but you, I said, could stay longer it 
would be the better for you. We shall see how it smells when you 
come and need not make long programmes. 

For myself I have been sleeping about at home, again, have done 
so since Monday. I had to give up my snug little lodging suddenly 
and remain here, for 'reasons which it may be interesting not to 
state.' As the painter (only one can I get) paints me out of one 
floor, I move to another; but I have slept oftenest iu the back par- 
lour, on the sofa, which stands there in permanency, and which, 
with four chairs and a quantity of pillows, I have made into an 
excellent bed. But surely it were more agreeable to write of some- 
thing else. 

Dr. H ■ then! What Doctor H means I am at a loss to 

conjecture, but that be comes hereoftener than natural is a positive 
fact. After the five ineffectual visits he made a sixth, which was 
successful. I was at home, and he stayed an hour and half! — look- 
ing so lovingly into my eyes that I felt more puzzled than ever. Is 
it to hear of Lady A. be comes? I thought, and started that topic, 
but he let it drop without any appearance of particular interest. 
'He is an Austrian,' I thought again, and all Austrians are born 
spies, Reichenbacb said ; he may know I am the friend of Mazzini, 
and be wanting to find out things of him; so then I brought in the 
name of Mazzini, bat that was also no go. When he w T as going 
away he said. ' In a few days I will do myself the honour of calling 
again ! ' I did not want him to be taking up my time in the morn- 
ings, so I said, ' It was the merest chance finding me at present in 
the mornings.' ' At what time then may I hope to find you? ' 'In 
the evenings, I said, ' but it is too far for you to come then.' ' Oh, 
not at all.' Better fix an evening I thought, and have somebody to 
meet him. So I asked him for Wednesday, and had Saffl and 
Reichenbach here, and both were charmed with him, as well they 
might be, for he took such pains to please us; actually at my first 
request sang to us without any accompaniment. To-day he has 
been here again with bis wife, a pretty, lady-like, rather silly young 

woman, whom Lady A. has taken into favour. Mrs. G called 

yesterday — of the same genus. The Captain ' is come to town and 
is on his good behaviour for the moment. He says he was keeping 
a journal of his travels in Scotland, but when he found no letter 
from me at Oban, where he had begged me to write, he dropt his 
journal — 'never wrote another word.' 

I have bad no accounts from John very lately — entangled in the 
details no doubt; indeed, I get almost no letters, not having com- 
posure or time to write any. 

Geraldine has been some weeks in the Isle of Man, making love 
to some cousin (a doctor) she has there, and even she has fallen 
mute. 

Last Sunday I thought I had got a letter! Ob, worth all the 
letters that this earth could have given me! I was tumbling two 
boxfuls of my papers into one large box, when the desire took me 
to look into my father's day-book, which I had never opened since 
it came to me, wrapt in newspaper, and sealed, from Templaud. 
I removed the cover and opened it; and fancy my feelings on see- 
ing a large letter lying inside, addressed 'Mrs. Carlyle,' in my 
mother's handwriting, with three unbroken seals of her ring! I sat 
with it in my hands, staring at it, with my heart beating and my 
head quite dizzy. Here was at last the letter I bad hoped would 
be found at Templand after her death — now, after so many years, 
after so much sorrow ! I am sure I sat ten minutes before I could 
open it, and when I did open it I could not see to read anything. 
Alas! it was not that wished-for letter of farewell; still it was some- 
thing. The deed was there, making over my property to her, and 
written inside the envelope were a few words ; ' When this comes 

1 A. Sterling. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



into your possession, my dearest child, do not forget my sister. 
G. W., Templand, May 1827.' 

Beside the deed lay my letter, which accompanied it. and a long, 
long letter, also mine, most sad to read, about my marriage, some 
copies of letters also in my father's writing, and a black profile of 
him. On the whole I felt to have found a treasure, though I was 
dreadfully disappointed too, and could do nothing all the day after 
but cry. 

Wednesday, 6th. — Last night I took to crying again at this point; 
besides it was more than time to go to bed (figuratively speaking); 
and now I have my all work to attend to. Fanny continues the 
best-tempered of creatures, and her health keeps pretty good through 
all the mess; so that decidedly one may hope she will be equal to 
our needs in the normal slate of things. 

Do you know I think I have found out, though Erskine has never 
■written to tell me, ' what God intended me for ' — a detective police- 
man! I should have gone far in that career had it. been open to my 
talent!' You may remember an ornament I have been wearing 
for some years on my neck, or rather you certainly remember no- 
thing about it. It was a large topaz set richly in gold, forming a 
clasp to a bit of black velvet ribbon. Well this disappeared 
while I was at my last lodging, and I was very sorry, as it 
was the first jewel I ever possessed, and was given me by my 
father. As I had perfect faith in the honesty of the simple 
people of the lodgings, I would not. fancy it stolen there, and 
as little was it possible for me to believe anyone here had stolen 
it; it was gone anyhow, and for the first time in my life I let 
a thing I valued go. helplessly and hopelessly, without one effort 
to recover it, beyond searching thoroughly the two places. One 
day, about a week after, it came into my bead in the King's 
Road, ' Does it not look like a decay of my faculties to so part with 
my clasp? How many things have I not recovered by trying the 
impossible? ' And then I said to myself, ' It is not too late for the 
impossible even now;' and set myself to 'consider' — thus: I am 
certain it is not mislaid, either at the lodging oral home; I have 
searched too thoroughly. I am equally certain that in neither 
house would any of the people have stolen it. Ergo, it must have 
been lost off my neck, or out of my pocket, out of doors. Off my 
neck? No; I "had a blue ribbon on my neck when it was lost. 
Out of my pocket then? Now it couldn't have leapt out of my 
pocket; it must have been pulled out with my handkerchief, or my 
purse. With my handkerchief? No, I never use one, unless I am 
crying, or have a cold in my head; and I don't cry on the streets, 
and have had no colds this twelvemonth. With my purse, then, it 
must have been pulled out — ergo in some shop. I could not be 
pulling out my purse, except to pay for something. Now what 
shops was I in last week? I could easily count them: the Post 
Otlice, Warne's, Smith's, Todd's. I asked at the Post Office, at 
Smith's — no result; at Todd's — the same careless answer — but sud- 
denly a gleam of intelligence came over Mrs. Todd's face, and she 
exclaimed to her girl, ' Thai couldn't be gold surely, that thing the 
children were playing with ! ' And it was my clasp, found by Mrs. 
Todd under a chair in her shop, and taken for ' a thing of no value,' 
and given to her little boys to play with ; and so well had they 
played with it that only the setting could be found, and that, after 
two days' search; the topaz had been 'lost in the Green Park!' 
But I was so glad to have the frame at least, and am getting some 
hair put in it, instead of the stone. But just fancy recovering such 
a thing out of space in London, after a week! I wonder if my let- 
ter will be over- weight. Such weather — rain, rain, and the paint 
— eccn la combinazione ! Kind regards to Neuberg, who will cer- 
tainly go to Heaven without any lingering in Purgatory. 
Ever affectionately yours, 

J. W. Carltle. 

LETTER 150. 

To Dr. Qwrlyle. 

5Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Friday, Oct. 18, 1853. 
My dear John, — The last letter you got from me lay here two 
days before it got posted. I was put in what Ant.hon)' Sterling 
calls ' a state of mind.' and forgot it in my pocket. It was written 
at Hemus Terrace, that letter, late at night, and after writing it I 
went to bed. and I awoke with a bad headache, and when I got up 
at my usual hour (six o'clock), I reeled about like 'a drunk' (as 
Mazzini would say). But as no coffee or attentions were there, I 
would go home to breakfast as usual, and, after splashing my head 
with cold water, succeeded in getting my clothes on. When I 
opened the front door it was a deluge of rain, and I had only thin 
silk shoes, with holes in them, and no umbrella. A beautiful out- 
look, with a sick headache! I rang the bell, and implored the 
landlady's daughter to lend me a pair of clogs and an umbrella, and 
these being vouchsafed me, I dragged home, thinking resolutely of 
the hot coffee that Fanny would have all ready for me, to be taken 
at the kitchen fire, and the kind sympathy that she would accom- 
oany it with. On reaching my own door 1 could hardly stand, and 
leant on the rails till it was opened. Fanny did not open it, but a 
Mrs. Heywood, who had been assisting in the cleaning for some 

1 That is truth, too. 



days — a decent, disagreeable young woman. ' Oh,' she said, the 
first thing, ' we are so glad you are come! Fanny is in such a 
way! The house has been broken into during the night! the po- 
lice, are now in the kitchen! ' Here was a cure for a sick headache! 
and it did cure it. ' Have they taken much? ' I asked. ' Oh, all 
Fanny's best things, and a silver table-spoon, and a table-cloth be- 
sides!' A mercy it was no worse! In the kitchen stood two 
police-sergeants, writing down in a book the stolen items from 
Fanny's dictation; she, poor thing, looking deathly. There was no 
coffee, of course — no fire even — everything had gone to distrac- 
tion. The thieves had come in at the larder window, which Mr. 
Morgan had kept without a frame (!) for three weeks; the boils on 
the outside of the back-kitchen door had saved the whole house 
from being robbed, for Fanny slept sound and never heard them. 
They had taken her nice new large trunk out of the back kitchen 
into the larder, broken off the lock, and tumbled all the contents 
on the floor, carrying away two shawls, two new dresses, and a 
variety of articles, along with the spoon, which had unluckily been 
left, after creaming the milk for my tea. and a table-cloth (good), 
which hail been drying Nero; they had also drunk the milk for my 
breakfast, and eaten a sweet cake baked tor me by Mrs. Piper; but 
they had not, taken the half of Fanny's clothes, which are all excel- 
lent; nor three sovereigns, which she had lying wrapped in a bit of 
brown paper at the bottom of her box; nor a good many things of 
mine that were lying open in a basket for the laundress, and which 
they had also tumbled on the floor; nor many little things lying 
about in the back kitchen, which would have useful to them, 
whence I infer that they had been frightened away. Fanny, 
though not conscious of having heard them, said that about mid- 
night 'something awoke her,' and she stretched out her hand for her 
handkerchief which lay on a table at her bedside, and in so doing 
knocked over a brass candlestick, which ' made a devil of a row ' — 
doubtless that had disturbed them, or we should have lost more. 
As it was. Fanny's loss amounted to four sovereigns, I computed, 
which, of course, I gave her, though she was not expecting, poor 
thing, to be compensated, and kept declaring she was thank- 
ful it was her, and not the mistress, that had lost most. There 
were dirty prints of naked feet all over the larder shelf, on which 
they stepped from the window; a piece of the new shelf burnt with 
a candle that had been stuck to it. A mercy the fine new house 
was not set on fire! Policemen, four of them, kept coming in plain 
clothes, and in uniform, for the next three days, talking the most 
confounded nonsense, and then died away reinfecia, not a trace of 
any of the corpus delicti found. Mr. Chalmers had a pair of heavy 
steps carried over his wall, and applied to a window of number 
one the same night, and a pair of bad worsted stockings left in his 
conservatory; the carrying away of the steps proved there had been 
more than one thief, as they were too heavy for one to take over a 
high wall. The window at number one was got up a little way, 
but stuck there. Almost every night since some house in the im- 
mediate neighbourhood has been entered or attempted, and still the 
police go about ' with their fingers in their mouths.' Of course I 
no longer went out to sleep, but occupied the sofa below, where 
the paint was least noxious. Fanny was thrown into such a ner- 
vous state that I was sure she would take a nervous fever if she 
were not relieved from all sense of responsibility, which could only 
be through my own presence in the house. So I declined Mr. Piper's 
offer to come and sleep here instead of me. Besides, as they had 
seen our open condition — ladders of all lengths lying in the garden, 
and all the windows to the back, except the parlour ones, abso- 
lutely without fastenings (!) — I had considerable apprehension that 
the)' would return in great force, and Mr. Piper, his wife con- 
fessed to me, ' would be useless against thieves, as he slept like a 
stone.' I sleep lightly enough for such emergency, and if I had to 
wait several days before the carpenter would return to put on the 
fastenings. I could at least furnish myself with a pair of loaded 
pistols. Capital good ones he at my bedside every night, the 
identical pistols with which old Walter of the Times was to have 
fought his duel, which did not come off. Bars of iron I got put in 
the larder window next day, independently of Mr. Morgan. In a 
day or two more these botheriug ladders will be taken away, and 
then, when I go to the Grange on Friday, Mr. Piper can come for 
the consolation of Fanny's imagination, and sleep as sound as he 
likes. I took care to let all the workmen, and extraneous people 
about, know of my loaded pistols. The painter came and examin- 
ed them one day when I was out, and said to Fanny: 'I shouldn't 
like to be a thief within twenty feet of your mistress, with one of 
these pistols in her hand. I shouldn't, give much for my life; she 
has such a devil of a straight eye! ' The workmen have all had to 
suffer a good deal from my 'eye,' which has often proved their 
foot rules and leads in error. 

In writing to Isabella to-night I said nothing of all this, in case 
of frightening your mother, nor have I told Mr. Carlyle, in case 
he should take it in his head to be uneasy, which is not likely, but 
just possible. 

And now good-night, and kind regards to the Ba-ing, 1 

Affectionately yours, 

Jane Carltle. 



1 Note, p. 79. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



VOLUME II. 



LETTER 151. 

Returning (middle of October, 1852), 'half dead,' out of those 
German horrors of indigestion, insomnia, and continual chaotic 
wretchedness, I fly upstairs to my poor Heroic Helper; am met by 
her dear warning, 'Take care of the paint! ' and find that she too 
is still fighting — has not conquered — that beast of a task, under- 
taken voluntarily for love of one unworthy. Alas, alas! it pains 
me to the heart, as it may well do, to think of all that. "Was ever 
any noble, delicate, and tender woman plunged into such an abyss 
of base miseries by her own nobleness of heart and of talent, and 
the black stupidities of others? She was engaged out to dinner, 
and. as it was already night, constrained me to go with her. Hans 
Place. Senior, Frederick Elliot, &c. — not a charming thing in the 
circumstances. 

We hereupon took refuge for a week or ten days (it seems) at the 
Grange — nothing recollected by me there — and by November were 
at last settled in our own clean house. Frederick had been upon 
my mind since 1851, and much reading and considering going on; 
but even yet, after my German investments of toil and pain, I felt 
uncertain, disincliued, and in the end engaged in it merely on the 
principle Tantus labor non sit cassus (as the ' Dies Ira? ' has it). My 
heart was not in it: other such shoreless and bottomless chaos, 
with-traces of a hero imprisoned there, I did never behold, nor will 
another soon in this world. Stupiditas stupiditatum, omnia stu- 
piditas. 

Beginning of March 1853 I must have been again at the Grange 
for about a month. Portuguese Ambassador and other lofty insig- 
nificancies I can vaguely recollect, but their date not at all. She 
from some wise choice of her own, wise and kind it was sure to be, 
had remained at home. — T. C. 

To Mrs. Russell, Thornhill. 

5 Cheyne Row: Friday, Dec. 31 f852. 
My dear Mrs. Russell, — Here is anotheryear; God help us all! I 
hope it finds you better than when I last heard of you from my 
friends at Auchertool. I have often been meaning to write to you 
without waiting for a New Year's Day; but in all my life I never 
have been so driven off all letter-writing as since the repairs began 
in this house. There were four months of that confusion, which 
ended quite romantically, in my having to sleep with loaded pistols 
at my bedside! the smell of paint making it as much as my life was 
worth to sleep with closed windows, and the thieves having become 
aware of the state of the premises. Once they got in and stole 
some six pounds' worth of things, before they were frightened away 
by a candlestick falling and making what my Irish maid called ' a 
devil of a row; ' it was rather to be called 'an angel of a row,' as 
it saved further depredation. Another time they climbed up to 
the drawing-room windows, and found them fastened, for a won- 
der! Another night I was alarmed by a sound as of a pane of glass 
cut, and leapt out of bed, and struck a light, and listened, and 
heard the same sound repeated, and then a great bang, like breaking 
in some panel. I took one of my loaded pistols, and went down- 
stairs, and then another bang which I perceived was at the front 
door. 'What do you want?' I asked; 'who are you?' 'It's the 
policeman, if you please; do you know that your parlour windows 
are both open? ' It was true! I had forgotten to close them, and 
the policeman had first tried the bell, which made the shivering 
sound, the wire being detached from the bell, and when he found 
he could not ring it he had beaten on the door with his stick, the 
knocker also being off while it was getting painted. I could not help 
laughing at what the man's feelings would have been had he known 
of the cocked pistol within a few inches of him. All that sort of 
thing, and much else more disagreeable, and less amusing, quite 

took away all my spirit for writing; then, when Mr. C returned 

from Germany, we went to the Grange for some weeks; then when 
I came home, and the workmen were actually out of the house, 
there was everything to look for, and be put in its place, and really 
things are hardly in their places up to this hour. Heaven defend 
me from ever again having any house I live in ' made habitable! ' 

What beautiful weather! I was walking in the garden by moon- 
light last night without bonnet or shawl ! A difference from being 
shut up for four months, as I used to be in the winter. 

All is quiet in London now that we have got that weary Duke's 
funeral over; for a while it made our neighbourhood perfectly intol- 
erable. I never saw streets so jammed with human beings in all 



my life. I saw the lying-in-state, at the cost of being crushed for 
four hours, and it was much like scenes I have seen in the Lyceum 
Theatre, only not so well got up as Vestris would have had it. I 
also saw the procession from Bath House, and that too displeased 
me; however, when the funeral car happened to-stop exactly oppo- 
site to the window I was sitting at for some eight minutes, and I 
saw Lord Ashburton, and several others of the Duke s personal 
friends standing on the terrace underneath, with their hats off, 
looking on the ground very sorrowful, and remembered that the 
last time I had seen the old Duke alive was in that very room, I 
could not help feeling as if he were pausing there to take eternal 
leave of us all, and fell to crying, and couldn't stop till it was all 
over. I send you some pictures of the thing which are quite accu- 
rate. It may amuse you to see what you must have read so much 
of in the newspapers. 

And now will you give Mary and Margaret some tea or some- 
thing, with my blessing, and dispose of the rest of the sovereign as 
you see lit? 

With kindest regards to your husband and father, believe me 
" Ever, dear Mrs. Russell, 
Tours affectionately, 

Jane Carltle. 

LETTER 152. 

Sir James Stephen used to frequent us on an evening now and 
then — a volunteer, and much welcome always. Son is the now 
notable James Fitzjames. Fat Boy is Senior the younger; had 
been at Malvern with us for the reason below, 'too much 'ealth,' 
according to the Gullies. — T. C. 

T. Carlyle, Esq. , at the Orange. 

Chelsea: Thursday, March 31, 1853. 

Several letters for you; but nothing to tell, except that we have 
had a — what shall I say? — second fright with the cat! He or she 
(whichever be its honour-worthy sex) disappeared this time for a 
whole day and night together, and having gone away over the gar- 
den wall, returned by the front area. A clever cat this one, evi- 
dently, but of an unsettled turn of mind. The weather is beautiful 
now; the wind in the east, I fancy, from the roughness of my gen- 
eralskin; but the sun cannot be shining more brightly even at the 
Grange. 

Sir James Stephen and his inseparable long son left a card yester- 
day. I saw them from the top of the street, and slackened my 
steps, till they were clear off. 'The Fat Boy' also made an inef- 
fectual call one day, surely in a moment of ' too much 'eWi ! ' I 
was in the house, but 'engaged,' reading the last pages of ' Jeanne 
de Vaudreuil,' which, if Lady A. felt down to reading a pretty 
religious book, you may safely recommend to her; it is worth a 
dozen ' Preciosas.' 

When I was paying a bill at Wain's on Monday, he asked, with 
an attempted solemnity, 'had I heard the news?' 'No, I had 
heard nothing; what was it?-' 'The Queen!' 'Well?' 'Prema- 
ture labour.' 'Well! what of that? ' ' But— accompanied with 
death ! ' ' The child you mean? ' ' No, the Queen !— very distress- 
ing isn't it, ma'am — so young a woman? Is there anything I can 
have the pleasure of sending"you to-day? ' I hardly believed the 
thing, and by going a little further satisfied myself it was 'a 
false report.' But was not that way of looking at it, ' so young a 
woman,' noteworthy? Mr. Wain being a model of respectable 
shopkeepers. What a difference since the time of the Princess 
Charlotte ! 

Tell Lady A. that I think there is no great harm in oranges in 
the forenoon; the rubbish at dessert is what you need to be with- 
held from. 

I should be glad if you would ask for a bouquet for me when 
vou are coming away. Ever yours, 

J J. W. C. 

LETTER 153. 

'Moffat House,' where brother John was now established with 
his wife, is the Raehills' (Hope Johnstone) town house; a big, old- 
fashioned, red ashlar edifice, stands gaunt and high in the central 
part of Moffat; which the Hope Johnstones now never u*e, and 
which, some time ago, brother John had rented as a dwelling-place, 
handy for Scotsbng, &c, being one of various advantages. ' Beat- 



84 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH OARLYLE. 



lock' (ancient Roman, it, is thought) is now the railway station 
about a mile from Moffat. 

To T. Carlyle, Chelsea. 

Moffat House: Friday, July 8, 1853. 

And my letter must be in the Post-Office before one o'clock! 
' Very absurd! ' ' And I have had to go to Beattock in the omni- 
bus with my cousin Helen to see her off for Glasgow, and am so 
tired ! Don't wonder then if you get a ' John's letter ' ■ from me 
also. 

The most important thing I have to tell you is, that you could 
not know me here, as I sit, from a Red-Indian! That I was kept 
awake the first night after my arrival by a — hyasua! (Yes, upon 
my honour; and you complain of a simple cock!) And that yes- 
terday I was as near as possible to giving occasion for the most 
romantic paragraph, of the ' melancholy accident' nature, that has 
appeared in any newspaper for some years! 

But. first, of the hyaena. On my arrival I found an immense 
caravan of wild beasts, pitched exactly in front of this house; and 
they went on I heir way during the night, and the animal in ques- 
tion made a devil of a row. I thought, it was the lion roaring; but 
John said ' No, it was only the hyaena! ' I rather en joyed the odd- 
ness of having fled into the country for 'quiet,' and being kept 
awake by wild beasts! 

Well, having got no sleep the first night, owing to these beasts, 
and my faceache, I felt very bothered all Wednesday, and 
gladly accepted John's offer to tell you of my safe arrival, mean- 
ing to write myself yesterday. But it was settled that we should 
go yesterday to see St. Mary's Loch, and the Grey-Mare's Tail. 3 
We started at nine of the morning in an open carriage, ' the Doc- 
tor,' and Phoebe — a tall, red-haired young woman, with a hoarse 
voice, who is here on a visit (' the bridesmaid ' she was); my cousin 
Helen, one little boy, and myself: the other two boys preceding 
us on horseback. It was the loveliest of days; and beautifuller 
scenery I never beheld. Besides that, it was full of tender interest 
for me as the birthplace of my mother. No pursuit of the pic- 
turesque had ever gone better with me till on the way back, when 
we stopped to take a nearer inspection of the Tail. The boys had 
been left fishing in the Loch of the Lows. John and Miss Hutchi- 
son had gone over the hills by another road to look at Loch 
Skene, and were to meet us at the Tail; so there were only Phoebe, 
Helen, and I as we went up to the Tail from underneath. 

We went on together to the customary point of view, and then I 
scrambled on by myself (that is, with Nero), from my habitual 
tendency to go a little further always than the rest. Nero grew 
quite frightened, and pressed against my legs; and when we came 
close in front of the waterfall, he stretched his neck out at it from 
under my petticoats, and then barked furiously. Just then, I saw 
John waving his hat to me from the top of the hill; and, excited 
by the grandeur of the scene, I quite forgot how old I was, how 
out of the practice of 'speeling rocks;' and quite forgot, too, that 
John had made me take the night before a double dose of morphia, 
which was still in my head, making it very light; and I began to 
climb up the precipice! For a little way I got on well enough; 
but when I discovered that I was climbing up a ridge (!), that the 
precipice was not only behind but on both sides of me, I grew, for 
the first time in my life that I remember of, frightened, physically 
frightened; I was not only afraid of falling down, but of losing 
my head to the extent of throwing myself down. To go back on 
my hands and knees as I had come up was impossible; my only 
chance was to look at the grass under my face, and toil on till 
John should see me. I tried to call to him, but my tongue stuck 
fast and dry to the roof of my mouth; Nero barking with terror, 
and keeping close to my head, still further confused me. John 
had meanwhile been descending the hill; and, holding by the 
grass, we reached one another. He said, 'Hold on: don't give 
way to panic; I will stand between you and everything short of 
death.' We had now got off the ridge, on to the slope of the hill; 
but it was so steep that, in the panic I had taken, my danger was 
extreme for the next quarter of an hour. The bed of a torrent, 
visible up there, had been for a long time the object of my desire; 
I thought I should stick faster there, than ou the grassy slope with 
the precipipice at the bottom of it: but John called to me that ' if 
1 got among those stones I should roll to perdition.' He was very 
kind, encouraging me all he could, but no other assistance was 
possible. In my life I was never so thankful as when I found my- 
self at the bottom of that hill with a glass of water to drink. 
None of them knew the horrors I had suffered, for I made no 
screaming or crying; but my face, they said, was purple all over, 
with a large black spot under each eye. And to-day I still retain 
something of the same complexion, and I am all of a tremble, as 
as if I had been on the rack. 4 

It is a lovely place this, and a charming old-fashioned house, 
with 'grounds 'at the back. It is comfortably but plainly and 
old-fashionedly furnished, looks as if it had been stripped of all its 



1 ' Very absurd ' is a phrase of John's. 2 Too brief generally. 

3 Lofty cataract in the green wilderness left altogether to itself— the most 
impressive 1 ever looked on. (See Sir Walter Scott, &c.) 

4 Terrible to me was the first reading of this, with memory of the horror 
and peril o£ the actual locality. 



ornamental details, and just the necessaries left. There is a cook, 
housemaid, and lady's-maid, and everything goes on very nicely. 
The three boys are as clever, well-behaved boys as I ever saw. and 
seem excessively fond of ' the Doctor.' John is as kind as kind 
can be, and seems to have an excellent gift of making his guests 
comfortable. Phoebe's manner is so different from mine, so formal 
and cold, that I don't feel at ease with her yet. She looks to me 
like a woman who had been all her life made the first person with 
those she lived beside, and to feel herself in a false position when 
she doubts her superiority being recognised. She seems very con- 
tent with John, however, and to suit him entirely. 

My hand shakes so, you must excuse illegibility. 

I don't know yet when I am to go to Scotsbrig. 
[No room to sign.] 

LETTER 154. 
Mrs. Braid is the excellent, much loving, and much loved old 
servant Betty.- Her husband Braid, an honest enough East-Lothian 
man, is by trade and employment a journeyman mason in Edin- 
burgh, his wife keeping a little shop in Adam Street there by way 
of supplement. They have one child, ' George,' an innocent, good 
lad, who has learned the watchmaking business, and promises 
modestly in all ways to do well; but had, about this time, fallen 
into a kind of languid illness, from which, growing ever worse, 
and gradually deepening into utter paralysis, he never could re- 
cover, but was for eight or nine years the one continual care of 
poor Betty till he died. 

Mrs. Braid, Adam Street, Edinburgh. 

Moffat House, Moffat: July 13, 185a 

My dearest Betty, — I am afraid almost to tell you that I am 
here, without being able to say positively that I am coming to see 
you. When I left London, to see you was one of the chief pleas- 
ures I expected from my travels. I intended to be in Scotland 
some six weeks at least, and to go to Haddington and Fife. But 
now it seems likely I shall have to return to London, almost imme- 
diately, without having seen anyone but my husband's relations in 
Dumfriesshire. Mr. Carlyle remained behind at Chelsea, having 
never recovered (he says) from the knocking about he had last year 
in Scotland and Germany, while the house was repairing. He is 
very melancholy and helpless left alone at the best of times; and 
now I am afraid he is going to have a great sorrow in the death of 
his old mother. She has been in a frail way for years back; but 
within the last few days her weakness has increased so much that 
Dr. Carlyle thinks it probable enough she may not rally again, in 
which case I shall go home at once, to be some help to Mr. Carlyle. 
I am staying now with Dr. Carlyle's wife, while he himself is gone 
to see his mother; and his report to-night will decide me what to 
do. So in case I do not see you, dear Betty — and I fear I shall 
not see you — here is a ribbon, in remembrance of my birthday, 
with a kiss and my blessing. 

Mr. Erskine writes that he saw you, and liked you very much. 
I am sure you would like him too. 

The little view at the top of this sheet is where I live in London. 

Bishop Terrot told me George was poorly when he saw you last. 
I hope he is recovered. If I do not write within a week, address 
to me, Cheyne Row, Chelsea. 

Affectionately yours, 

Jane Carl vie. 

LETTER 155. 

Her visit to my mother I perfectly remember, and how my d^ar 
old mother insisted to rise from bed to be dressed, and go down- 
stairs to receive her daughter-in-law out of doors, and punctually 
did so. 1 suppose the last time she was in holiday clothes in this 
world ! It touched me much. My Jane she had always honored 
as queen of us all. Never was a more perfect politeness of heart, 
beautifully shining through its naive bits of embarrassments and 
simple peasant forms. A pious mother, if there ever was one : pious 
to God the Maker and to all He had made. Intellect, humour, 
softest pity, love, and, before all, perfect veracity in thought, in 
word, mind, and action; these were her characteristics, and had been 
now for above eighty-three years, in a humbly diligent, beneficent, 
and often toilsome and suffering life, which right surely had not been 
in vain for herself or others. The end was now evidently nigh, 
nor could we even wish, on those terms, much longer. Her state of 
utter feebleness and totally ruined health last year (1852) had been 
tragically plain to me on leaving for Germany. For the first time 
even my presence could give no pleasure, her head now so heavy. 

These by my Jeannie are the last clear views I had of this nobly 
human mother. It is pity any such letters should be lost. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

Scotsbrig: July 30, 1853. 
I daresay you have thought me very neglectful, dear, in not 
writing yesterday, to give you news of your mother; but there was 
nothing comfortable, or even positive, to be said yesterday; and to 
torture you at a distance with miserable uncertainties seemed a cruel 
attention. Through Saturday and Sunday your mother continued 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



85 



much the same as I found her on my last coming. Too weak and 
frail te»be out of bed, but without pain or sickness; for the rest, 
perfectly clear in her mind, and liking us to be in the room talking 
to her. During the Sunday night she became very restless, and 
about seven on Monday morning she fell into a state which was 
considered by all here, the minister included, to be the beginning 
of the end. There was no pain, no struggle. She lay without 
sense or motion, cold and deathlike, hardly breathing at all. The 
minister prayed without her hearing him. John and Mary were 
sent for, with scarce a hope that they could arrive in time, and all 
of us sat in solemn silence awaiting the end. Had it come 
thus, you would have had no cause to lament, dear; a more merci- 
ful termination there could not have been to a good life. But after 
lying in this state from seven in the morning till a quarter after 
two in the day, she rallied as by miracle. Jane was wiping her lips 
with a wet sponge, when she (your mother) suddenly took the sponge 
out of Jane's hand and sponged her face all over with her own 
hand; then she opened her eyes, and spoke quite collectedly, as if 
nothing had happened; nor has she ever shown the least conscious- 
ness of having come through that fearful crisis. 

When John and Mary arrived together, at a quarter after four, 
not expecting to find her alive, they found her a little weaker per- 
haps, but not otherwise worse than when they left her. She talked 
a good deal to me during the afternoon; said you had been as good 
a son to her as ever woman had ; ' but indeed they had been all good 
bairus; and Isabella, puir bodie, was gaiy 1 distressed hersell, and it 
was just to say that Isabella had been often kind to her, extraor- 
dinar kind, and was ay kindest when they were alane thegither, and 
she had none else to depend on.' That I can well believe; and very 
glad I was to have those kind words to carry to Jamie and Isabella. 
Isabella had been crving all morning, for since Jane came your 
mother had hardly spoken to her. When I left your mother that 
night, she said in a clear, loud voice, ' I thank ye most kindly for 
all your attentions.' ' Oh, if I could but do you any good! ' I said. 
' Ye have done me good, mony a time,' she answered. I went to 
bed to lie awake all night, listening for noises. John slept in the 
mid-room. But the light of a new day found your mother better, 
rather than worse. It was more the recollection of the state in which 
she had been than her actual state that kept us in agitation all yester- 
day. One thing that leads me to believe her life will be prolonged 
is, that she recovered out of that crisis by the natural strength that 
was still in her; she must have been much stronger than anyone 
thought, to have rallied after so many hours of such deathlike pros- 
tration, entirely of herself. 

She had been in the habit of getting what seems to me perfectly 
extraordinary quantities of wine, whisky, and porter, exciting a 
false strength, not to be depended on for an hour. Of late days 
this system has been discontinued, and she takes now only little 
drops of wine and water, two or three times a day, and about the 
third of a tumbler of Guinness' porter at night. The day that John 
was sent for last week, he told me himself she had ' a bottle of 
vine (strong Greek wine), a quarter of a bottle of whisky (25 over 
proof), besides a tumbler of porter.' A life kept up in that way 
was neither to be depended on, nor I should say to be desired. 
Now she is living on her own strength, such as it is; and you may 
conceive what irritation is removed. I don't know whether it is to 
be considered lucky or unlucky that I came at this time. Of 
course I give as little trouble as possible, and make myself as 
useful as possible, and I feel sure that Jamie and Isabella like me 
to be here, even under these sad circumstances, and that the sight 
of me coming and going in her room does your mother good rather 
than harm ; and then I shall be able to answer all your questions 
about her when I come back, better than the others could do by 
letter. As for Mary, she is the same kindly soul as I knew her at 
Craigenputtock. Jamie was to have driven me over to the Gill on 
Monday, and instead the empty gig was sent to bring Mary here. 
She ran out of the house to meet me, and was told her mother was 
at the point of death. She is still here — but goes home to-morrow, 
I believe; and John goes back to Moffat to-day. He will probably 
be down again to-morrow. It is a comfort to himself to come, but 
he can do nothing; no doctor can do anything against old age, 
which is your mother's whole disease. 

I shall be home one of these days. Any little spirits for visiting 
and travelling that I had left are completely worn out by what I 
have found here. I only wait till things are re-established in a state 
in which I can leave with comfort. 

1 have just been to see if your mother had awoke; she has slept 
two hours. I asked her if she had any message for you, and she 
said, ' None, I am afraid, that he will like to hear, for he'll be 
sorry that I'm so frail.' She has had some chicken broth. I will 
write again to-morrow, and I beseech you not to be fancying her 
ill off in any way. She has no pain, no anxiety of mind, is more 
comfortable, really, lying in bed there 'so frail,' than we have of- 
ten seen her going about after her work. She is attended to every 
moment of the day, gets everything she is able to take. No one 
can predict as to the length of her life, after what we saw on Mon- 
day; but there is nothing in her actual state or appearance to make 
it impossible, or even imi robable, that she should live a long time 
yet. I would much rathW not have written to-day, but I judged 

1 Gaiy, pretty much. , 



that my silence might alarm you even more than the truth told 
you. I like few things worse than writing ill news. 

Ever affectionately yours, 

J. W. Carlyle. 

I had a very kind letter from Jeannie Chrystal, 1 pressing me to 
go there for a week or two; but, as I have said, I am quite out of 
heart, I have had no sleep the last two nights, and shall get none 
now, probably, till I am in my own bed at Chelsea. It is quite 
affectim;. James's devoted attention to me. If I am but out half 
an hour for a walk, he will follow me to my bedroom, no matter 
how early in the day, carrying (very awkwardly, you may be sure) 
a little tray with a decanter of wine (not the Greek wine, but wine 
bought for me by himself) and a plateful of shortbread. Nor can 
anybody be more heartily and politely kind than Isabella has been 
to me. 

My remembrances to Fanny. 



LETTER 156. 

To T. Carlyle, Chelsea. 

Scotsbrig: Thursday, July 21, 1853. 

It is a pleasure to write to-day, dear; your mother is so well. 
She went to sleep last night about eight o'clock, and slept a fine 
natural 'pkiffing' sleep till one in the morning, when she awoke 
and asked for some porridge, which having taken, she went to 
sleep again, and slept till six in the morning. Then she opened 
her eyes and said, ' write a line to the doctor ' by the train to tell 
him 'no to come back the-day; for 'atwell 2 she wasna needing 
him.' Then off to sleep again till half after nine. I was sitting at 
her bedside when she woke up then quite fresh, and her first word 
was, ' Did they send a bit line to the doctor to bid him no come?' 

Her going on hitherto is all confirmatory of my first impression, 
that it could not be for nothing that she had come out of that 
death-like trance through her own uuassisted strength; but that 
she was going to have a new lease of life with better health than 
before. "l have not seen her so well as she is to-day since I came 
to the country; and Jane says she has not seen her so well since 
Candlemas; and Mr. Tait 3 told me an hour ago he had not seen 
her so well for eight weeks. And she has not a drop of wine or 
whisky, or any of those horrible stimulants to-day, so that one is 
sure the wellness is real. 

It was put in my power, 'quite promiscuously,' to give her a 
little pleasure this morning. 1 'do all the walking of the family' 
at present; carry all the letters backwards and forwards, like a. 
regular post-woman, of my own free will of course, for Jamie 
would send to Middlebie or Ecclefechan at any time for me; but I 
can be best spared to go, and I like it. Since I came here, I ' have 
been known ' to walk to Ecclefechan and back again twice in one 
day! And most times I get an old man for company; different old 
men attach themselves to me, like lovers; and I find their innocent 
talk very refreshing. 

ThLs morning I went to Middlebie as usual on the chance of a 
letter from you, and the post, as usual, not being come (I always 
go far too soon), I walked on, as usual, and met the postman half- 
way to Ecclefechan. Coming back, reading your notes, I met 
three or four women, one of whom stopped me to inquire for your 
mother. Then she left her companions and turned back with me, 
telling me about her mother, how ill she bad been last week, and 
that she would ' like weel to ken what I thocht o' her looks com- 
pared wi' Mrs. CaiiTs.' 4 And when we arrived at a farmhouse on 
the Ecclefechan side of the mill she begged me, as a great favour, 
' just to step in and take a look o' her mother, and say what I 
thocht.' I did not refuse, of course; but went in, and sat awhile 
beside a good patient-looking old woman in the bed, who asked 
many questions about your mother, and told me much about her- 
self. When I came in aud described where I had been, it turned 
out I bad brought your mother the very information she had been 
asking of all the rest yesterday with no result; and she had left off, 
saying, ' naebody cared for auld-folks nowadays, or some o' them 
would hae gaen an' asket for puir Mrs. Corrie.' And there had I 
come home with the most particular iutelligence of Mrs. Corrie. 

I must write to Thomas Erskine to-day; and to Liverpool to tell 
them they may look for me any day. With John hovering about 
' not like one crow, but a whole flight of crows,' and Jane rubbing 
everything up the wrong way of "the hair, my position is not so 
tenable as it would have been alone with your mother and Jamie 
and Isabella. But I could not have gone with comfort to myself, 
while your mother was in so critical a state. I shall probably go 
to Liverpool to-morrow or next day; at all events, you had best 
write there. . 

I am decidedly of opinion that one should make oneself inde- 
pendent of Rocua i and all contingencies by building the ' sound- 

1 Cousin Jeannie, of Liverpool, now wedded in Glasgow. 

2 That well; very certainly. 

3 The clergyman * Low Annandale for Carlyle s. 

» Ronea inhabitant of the then dilapidated No. 6 next door, who nearly 
killed us with poultry and other noises 1 The 'sound-proof room' was a flat- 
tering delusion of an* ingenious needy builder, for which we afterwards paid 
dear Being now fairly in for ' Frederick,' and the poultry, parrots, Cochin 



8G 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



proof ' room, since so much money has already been spent on that 
house. 

Yours ever affectionately, 

Jane W. C. 

LETTER 157. 

A '.ett . t, perhaps two letters, seem to be lost here, which con- 
taineil painful and vet beautiful and honestly pathetic details of 
her quilling Scotsbrig before the time looked for, and on grounds 
which had imt appeared to her, nor to anybody except my brother 
John, to lie really necessary in such a fashion. It is certain all the 
rest at Scotsbrig (Jamie and Isabella especially, her hosts there) 
wi'ie vexed to the heart, as she could herself notice; and her own 
feeling of the matter was sorrowful and painful, and continued so 
in a degree, ever after, when it rose to memory. My dear little 
heavy laden, tender-hearted, 'worn and weary,' fellow pilgrim, feet 
bleeding by tin- way over the thorns of this bewildered earth. Of 
this weeping all the way to Carlisle, on quitting one's fatherland, I 
surely remember another letter to have said (in the words of a fool- 
ish song then current) — 

And I left my youth behind 
For somebody' else to find, 
which gave the last sad touch to the picture. In one of her letters 
to me it iudubitably was. ' Sophy,' an orphan half -cousin, to whom 
and to iter mother Uncle John's munificence had been fatherly and 
princely, was now, and still continues, Alick Welsh's good and 
amiable wife. 

T. C. 
To T. Carlyle, Chelsea. 

Liverpool : Monday, July 25. 1853. 

Sophy's letter yesterday would be better than nothing, would at 
least satisfy you I had come to hand, though in assez manvais flat. 
I got your last letter, addressed to Scotsbrig, at Middlebie on my 
way to the station; and it cheered me up a" little for 'taking the 
road.' God knows I needed some cheeriug. In spite of your letter 
I cried all the way to Carlisle pretty well; I felt to love my poor 
old country so much in leaving it that morning, privately minded 
never to return. After an hour-and-half of waiting at Carlisle 1 
was whirled to Liverpool so fast, oh so fast! My brains somehow 
couldn't subside after. The warmest welcome awaited me at Mary- 
land Street. My uncle looked especially pleased; Nero ran up to 
him alone in the drawing-room, as if to tell we were come; and 
when I went in, it was standing at his knees, my uncle's hand on 
his head', as if receiving his blessing. 

But the front door and windows were being painted at Maryland 
Street; and they were afraid of the smell annoying me, and had 
settled I was to sleep at Alick's. Alick and Sophy were there to 
take me home with them. I was better pleased to sleep here; it is 
a much larger, better-aired house. A more comfortable, quieter 
bedroom never was slept in; but I couldn't close my eyes; took two 
morphia pills at three in the morning, and they produced that hor- 
rible sickness which morphia produces in some people. 

All yesterday I was in bed alternating between retching and 
fainting. Sophy 'came out very strong' as a nurse, and even as a 
doctor; reminding me so much of her mother. I wish you would 
write two lines of answer to her note; she was really uncommonly 
kind to me. To-day I am recovered, having slept pretty well last 
night, only ' too weak for anything.' I shall probably be home on 
Thursday, hardly sooner I think; but I will write again before I 
come, i told Sophy to tell you that your mother had slept twelve 
hours the night before I came away. She does not read herself at 
present, but Jane was reading the books you sent aloud to her. 
And Margaret Austin read aloud some of Chalmers's letters. 

As Jamie and I were driving to the station on Saturday, we met 
Jessie Austin going to Scotsbrig to stay a little while in room of 
Margaret, who had gone home when Jean came. 

I thought Jessie a remarkably nice-looking young woman, sweet- 
tempered, intelligent, and affectionate-looking, and well-bred withal, 
I only spoke with her five minutes in passing, but she made the 
most derided impression on me. 

'No more at present.' 

Affectionately yours 

J. W. C. 

Your letter to Maryland Street was brought up in the morning; 
but I could not read it till after noon. Thanks for never neglecting. 

[Contains inplosure from Kate Sterling (dated ' Petersburg '1); do. 
from sifter Mary, last part of letter is written on that ] 

LETTER 158. 

'Uncle John,' at Liverpool, .lied shortly after Mrs. Carlyle re- 
turned to London. ' Helen,' lo whom this letter is written, died a 
few weeks after. 

China, ami vermin like to drive one mad, I at last gave in to the seducer, set 
him to work on the tup of the house story as floor, and cot a room, large, well 
ventilated, hut hy f.u- the noisiest in He- house, and in point of bad building, 
Rcamoiner. ami enormity of new expense anil of unexpected bad behaviour in 
hand and heart by his man and him, a kind of infernal ' miracle ' to me then 
and eve:- since; my first view of the Satan's invisible world that prevails in 
that department as in others. 



To Mm Helen Welsh, Auchtertool Manse. 

Chelsea: Wednesday, Oct. 12, 1853. 

Dearest Helen, — I know not what I am going to say. I am quite 
stupefied. I had somehow never taken alarm at my uncle's last ill- 
ness. I had fixed my apprehensions on the journey home, and was 
kept from present anxiety by that far off one. My beloved uncle, 
all that remained to me of my mother. A braver, more upright, 
more generous-hearted man never lived. When I took leave of him 
in Liverpool, and he said ' God bless you, dear ' (he had never 
called me dear before), I felt it was the last time we should be to- 
gether, felt that distinctly for a few hours; and then the impression 
wore off, and I thought I would go back soon, would go by the 
cheapest train (God help me), since it gave him pleasure to see me. 
That we have him no longer is all the grief! It was well he should 
die thus, gently and beautifully, with all his loving kindness fresh 
as a young man's; his enjoyment of life not wearied out; all our 
love for him as warm as ever; and well he should die in his own 
dear Scotland, amid quiet kindly things. We cannot, ought not to 
wish it had been otherwise, to wish he had lived on till his loss 
should have been less felt. 

But what a change for you all, and for me too, little as I saw of 
him. To know that kind, good uncle was iu the world for me, to 
care about me, however long absent, as nobody but one of one's 
own blood can, was a sweetness in my lonely life, which can be ill- 
spared. 

Poor dear little Maggie, I know how she will grieve about these 
two days, and think of them more than of all the years of patient, 
loving nursing, which should be no'w her best comfort. Kiss her 
for me. God support you all. Write to me when you can what 
you are going to do. Alas! that I should be so far sway from your 
councils. I need to know precisely about your future in an eco- 
nomical sense; through all the dull grief that is weighing on me, 
comes a sharp anxiety lest you should be less independent than 
heretofore ; to be relieved of that will be the best comfort you could 
give me at present. I never knew what money you bad to live on, 
nor thought about it; now, it is the first question I ask. I am 
dreary and stupid, and can write no more just now. 

Your affectionate 

J. C. 

When I saw your handwriting again last night, my only thought 
was 'how good of her to write another letter soon.' I was long 
before I could understand it. 



LETTER 159. 

After her return, ' Friedrich ' still going on in continual painful 
underground condition, the ' sound-proof ' operation was set about, 
poor Charley zealously but ineffectually presiding; Irish labourers 
fetching and carrying, tearing and rending, our house once more a 
mere dust-cloud, and chaos come again. One Irish artist, I re- 
member, had been ignorant that lath and plaster was not a floor; 
he, from above, accordingly came plunging down into my bedroom, 
catching himself by the arm-pits, fast swinging, astonished iu the 
vortex of old laths, lime, and dust! Perhaps it was with him that 
Irish Fanny, some time after, ran away iuto matrimony of a kind. 
Run or walk away she did, in the course of these dismal tumults, she 
too having gradually forgottou old things ; and was never more heard 
of here. We decided for Addiscombe, bcautifullest cottage in the 
world; the noble owners glad we would occupy a room or two of 
it in their absence. I liked it much, and kept busy reading, writ- 
ing, riding; she not so much, having none of these resources, no 
society at all, aud except to put me right, no interest at all. I re- 
member her coming and going; nay, I myself came and went. Off 
and on we stayed there for several weeks till the hurly-burly here 
was over or become tolerable. Miserable hurly-burly; the result of 
it, zero, and ' Satan's Invisible World Displayed ' (in the building 
trade, as never dreamt of before!). 

For the Christmas month, we were at the Grange, company bril- 
liant, &c, &c. ; but sad both of us, I by the evident sinking of my 
mother (though the accounts affected always to show the hopeful 
side); she, among other griefs, by the eminently practical one of 
Ronca's ' Demon Fowls,' as we now named them, and the totally 
futile issue of that ' sound-proof room.' 'My dear,' said she, one 
day to me, ' let us do as you have sometimes been sayiug, fairly 
rent that Ronca's house, turn Rouca with bis vermin out of it, and 
let it stand empty — empty aud noiseless. What is 407. or 45£. a 
year, to saving one's life and sanity? Neighbour Chalmers will 
help me; the owner people are willing; say you "yes," and I will 
go at once and have the whole bedlam swept away against your re- 
turn! ' I looked at her with admiration; with grateful assent,' Yes, 
if you can ' (which I could only half believe). She is off accord- 
ingly, my saving companion (beautiful Dea ex machind), and on the 
day following, writes to me [T. C.]: — 

To T. Carlyle, Esq., The Grange. 

Chelsea: Monday, Dec. 19, 1853. 
I cannot write till to-morrow, but just a line that you may not 
be fancying horrors about me. I did get home, and did do what 
was to be done, but now I must go to bed. It is nothing whatever 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



87 



but a nervous headache, which was sure to have come after so 
many nights without sleep; and perhaps it was as easy to transact 
it on the railway as in a bed in a strange house. I shall be better 
to-morrow, and will then tell you how the business proceeds. 

Greetings to Lady B .' 

Yours ever, 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 160. 

No. 6 Cheyne Row was, if I recollect, the joint property of two 
brothers, ' Martin ' their name, one of whom had fallen imbecile, 
and could, or at least did give no authority for outlay on the house, 
which had in consequence fallen quite into disrepair, and been let 
to this Ronca with his washing tubs, poultries, and mechanic sons- 
in-law, and become intolerable as a neighbourhood. Poor Rouca 
was not a bad man, though a misguided (' Irish Fanny,' a Catholie 
like the rest of them, was thought to have done mischief in the 
matter); but clear it was, at any rate that on him (alone of all Lon 
don specimens), soft treatment, never so skilful, so graceful, or 
gentle, could produce no effect whatever. But now wise appliance 
of the hard, soon brought him to new insight; and he had to 
knuckle and comply in all points. In a few days, my guardian 
genius saw herself completely victorious; the Rouca annoyances, 
Ronca himself in three months, &c, &c. Neighbour Chalmers, 
great in parochialities, did his best. The very house-agent was 
touched to the heart by such words (one Owlton, whom I never 
saw, but have ever since thanked), and this tragic canaillerie too 
had an end. As all here has — all — but not the meaning and first of 
all! Thou blessed one, no. Farther letters on this tragic contempti- 
bility I find none; indeed, perhaps hardly any came till my own 
sad re-appearance in Chelsea, as will be seen. — T. C. 

To Mrs. Russell, Thornliill. 
5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Friday night, Dec. 31, 1853. 
My dear Mrs. Russell, — Ever since I received your note by Mrs. 
Pringle, I have been meaning to write to you, yet always waited 
for a more cheerful season, and now here is New Year's day at 
hand, and my regular letter due. and the season is not more cheer- 
ful; and besides I am full of business, owing ."vthe sudden move- 
ments of the last two weeks, and Mr. C 's an. ^nce, leaving me 

his affairs to look after, as well as my own. We went 10 the Grange, 
(Lord Ashburtou's) in the beginning of December to stay till after 
Christmas. I was very glad to get into the country for a while, 
and had nothing to do but dress dolls for a Christmas-tree. For 
the last months had quite worn me out; I had had nothing but 

building and painting for so long, varied with Mr. C 's outbursts 

against the ' infernal cocks ' next door, which made our last addition 
of a ' silent apartment' necessary. Alas! and the silent apartment 
had turned out the noisiest apartment in the house, and the cocks 

still crowed, and the macaw still shrieked, and Mr. C still 

stormed. At the Grange I should at least escape all that for 
the time being, I thought. The first two days I felt in Paradise, 
and so well; the third day I smashed my head against a marble 
slab, raised a bump the size of a hen's egg on it, and gave a shock 
to my nerves that quite unfitted me for company. But I struggled 
on amidst the eighteen other visitors, better or worse, till at the end 
of a fortnight I was recovered, except for a slight lump still visible, 

when Mr. C ■ came to me one morning, all of a sudden, and told 

me I must go up to London myself, and take charge of some busi- 
ness — nothing less than trying to take the adjoining house ourselves, 
on the chance of letting it, and get our disobliging neighbours 
turned out; and, there being but six days till Christmas (the time 
for giving them notice to quit), of course despatch was required, 
especially as the owner of the house lived away in Devonshire. I 
thought it a most wild-goose enterprise I was sent on, and when 
Lady Ashburton, and the others asked him why he sent poor me 
instead of going himself, and when he coolly answered, ' Oh I 
should only spoil the thing, she is sure to manage it;' it provoked me 
the more, I was so sure I could not manage it. But he was quite 
right — before the week was out I had done better than take a house 
we did not need, for I had got the 'people bound down legally 
' under a penalty of ten pounds, and of immediate notice to quit, 
never to keep, or allow to be kept, fowls, or macaw, or other nui- 
sance on their premises,' in consideration of five pounds given to 
them by Mr. Carlyle. I had the lease of the house, and the notice 
to quit lying at my disposal; but the threat having served the end, 
I had no wish to turn the people out. You may fancy what I had 

suffered, through the effects of these nuisances on Mr. C , when 

I tell you that, on having this agreement put in my hand by their 
house-agent, I burst into tears, and should have kissed the man, if 
he had not been so ugly. Independently of the success of my diplo- 
macy about the cocks. I was very thankful I happened to be sent 
home just then, otherwise I should have got the news of my cousin 
Helen's death in a houseful of company. It was shock enough to 
get it here. I had received a long letter from herself a day or two 
before leaving the Grange, in which she told me she was unusually 
well; and the night after my return I had sat till after midnight 
answering it. Two hours after it had goue to the post-office came 

1 Dowager Lady Bath, perhaps. 



Mary's letter announcing her death. And the same day came 

Mr. C , who had suddenly taken the resolutiou to" go to 

Scotsbrig, and see his mother once more, John's letter indicating 
that she was dying fast. I hurried him off all I could, for 1 was 
terrified he would arrive to find her dead, and he \v;is just in lime. 
He writes he will probabty be home to-morrow night. It has been 

a continuous miracle for me, Mrs. C 's living till now, after the 

state I saw her in last July. But poor Helen Welsh! One has to 
think hard, that she had a deadly disease with much suffering be- 
fore her, painful operations before her, had she lived, to reconcile 
oneself to losing her so suddenly. 

Tell me, when you write, if poor Mary got her comforter. Mrs. 
Aitkeu forgot it for a long time; but on my telling her you had not 
received it, she sent it, she said, at once. I send the money order 
for the usual purposes — Mary, Margaret, who else you like. 

I hope Dr. Russell is quite strong now. Kind regards to him 
and your father. Tell Mis. Pringle, 1 when you see her, that I re- 
gretted being from home when she called, and that I really think 
my own full second cousin might have come to see me without a 
recommendation, and at first, instead of at last. As she left word 
she was going next door, there was nothing to be said or done. 

If you should not receive the usual donation from my cousins for 
old Mary, be sure to tell me; she must not be worse off at this ad- 
vanced age. But I daresay Maggie will be very desirous to con- 
tinue her father's good deeds. Poor little Maggie, I am like to cry 
whenever I thiuk of her, kind, patient, active, little nurse, and 
now transplanted to another country, her occupation gone. 

Your affectionate 

J. W. Cart.yle. 

I send for New Year's luck a book, which I hope you have not 
read already. 

LETTER 161. 

. From the Grange I must have followed in three days. The 
Scotsbrig letters on my mother's situation were becoming more 
and more questionable, indistinct too (for they tried to flatter me); 
evident it was the end must be drawing nigh, and it would be better 
for me to go at once. Mournful leave given me by the Lady Ash- 
burton; mournful encouragement to be speedy, not dilatory. After 
not many hours here I was on the road. Friday morning, Decem- 
ber 23, 1853, got to the Kirtlebridge Station; a grey dreary element, 
cold, dim, and sorrowful to eye and to soul. Earth spotted with 
frozen snow on the thaw as I walked solitary the two miles to 
Scotsbrig; my own thought and question, will the departing still 
be there? Vivid are my recollections there; painful still and 
mournful exceedingly; but I need not record them. My poor old 
mother still knew me (or at times only half knew me); had no dis- 
ease, but much misery; was sunk in weakness, weariness, and pain. 
She resembled her old self, thought I, as the last departing moon- 
sickle does the moon itself, about to vanish in the dark waters. 
Sad, infinitely sad, if also sublime. Sister Jean was there. Mary 
and she had faithfully alternated there for long mouths. It was 
now, as we all saw, ending; and Jean's look unforgetably sad and 
grand. Saturday night breath was nearly impossible; teaspoons of 
weak whisky punch alone giving some relief. Intellect intrinsic- 
ally still clear as the sun, or as the stars, though pain occasionally 
overclouded it. About 10 p.m. she evidently did not know me till 
I explained. At midnight were her last words to me, tone almost 
kinder than usual, and, as if to make amends, ' Good night, and 
thank ye!' John had given her some drops of laudanum. In 
about an hour after she fell asleep, and spoke or awoke no more. 
All Sunday she lay sleeping, strongly breathing, face grand and 
statue like; about 4 p.m. the breath, without a struggle, scarcely 
with abatement for some seconds, fled away whence it had come. 
Sunday, Christmas Day, 1853. My age 58; hers 83. 

T. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea: Tuesday, Dec. 27, 1853. 
Oh, my dear! never does one feel oneself so utterly helpless as 
in trying to speak comfort for great bereavement. I will not try 
it. Time is the only comforter for the loss of a mother. One does 
not believe in time while the grief is quite new. One feels as if it 
could never, never be less. And yet all griefs, when there is no 
bitterness in them, are soothed down by time. And your grief for 
your mother must be altogether sweet and soft. You must feel 
that you have always been a good son to her; that you have always 
appreciated her as she deserved, and that she knew this, and loved 
you to the last momeet. How thankful you may be that you went 
when you did, in time to have the assurance of her love surviving 
all bodily weakness, made doubly sure to you by her last look and 
words. Oh! what I would have given for last words, to keep in 
my innermost heart all the rest of my life; but the words that 
awaited me were, 'Your mother is dead!' And I deserved it 
should so end. I was not the dutiful child to my mother that you 
have been to yours. Strange that I sliould have passed that Sun- 
day in such utter seclusion here as if in sympathy with what was 
going on there. 



' A cousin of the Welsh family— one of the Hunters. 



88 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



It is a great mercy you have had some sleep. It will surely be a 
comfortable reflection for you iu coming home this time, that you 
will look out over a perfectly empty hen-court; part of it even al- 
ready pulled down, as all the rest, I daresay, soon will be. There 
are cocks enough iu all directions, as poor Shuttleworth remarked; 
but none will plague you like those, which had become a fixed idea, 
and a question, Shall I, a man of genius, or you, 'a sooty washer- 
woman,' be master here? If you would like to know the ultimate 
fate of the poultry, it was sold away to a postman, who has 'a 
hobby for fowls,' in Milmau's Row. I let them make what profit 
they could of their fowls, for we had no right to deprive them of 
them, only the right of humanity to have the people forced to do 
us a favour voluntarily for a suitable compensation. I am on 
terms of good neighbourhood now with all the Roncas, except the 
old laundress herself, who 'took to her bed nearly mad,' the mar- 
ried daughter told me, ' at lying under a penalty.' She must leave 
the place,' she said, 'her husband would sooner have died than 
broken his word, when he had passed it — and to be bound under a 
penalty ! ' I felt quite sorry for the people as soon as I had got 
them in my power, and have done what I could to soothe them 
down. 

Ever yours 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 162. 

Mrs. Russell, Tlwrnhill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: July 13, 1854. 

Isn't it frightful, dear Mrs. Russell, what a rate the years fly at? 
Another birthday came round to me ! and it looks but a week or 
two ago since I was writing to you from Moffat! ' The days 'look 
often long and weary enough in passing, but when all ' bunched 
up ' (as my maid expresses it) into a year, it is no time at all to look 
back on. 

We are still in London with no present thought of leaving it. 
The Ashburtons have gain offered us Addiscombe to rusticate at . 
while they are in the Highlands. But, in spite of the beauty and 
magnificence of that place, and all its belongings, I hate being 
there in the family's absence — am always afraid of my dog's mak- 
ing foot-marks on the sofas or carpet; of asking the fine housemaid 
to do something 'not in her work,' &c, itc. ; and so would, for 
my part, much rather stay in my own house all the year round. 

When Mr. C gets ill with the heat, however — if this year there 

is to be any — he may choose to go there for a few weeks, and will 
need me to order his dinners. 

I am hoping fora considerable acquisition before long: Miss Jews- 
bury, the authoress of 'The Half Sisters,' &c, the most intimate 
friend I have in the world, and who has lived generally at Manches- 
ter since we first knew each other, has decided to come and live near 
me for good. Her brother married eighteen months ago, and has 
realised a baby, and a wife's mother in the house besides. So 
Geraldine felt it getting too hot for her there. It will be a real gain 
to have a woman I like, so near as the street in which I have de- 
cided on an apartment for her. All my acquaintances live so far 
off. that, it is mechanically impossible to be intimate with them. 

You would be sorry to hear of poor Elizabeth Welsh's 2 accident. 
Ann has written me two nice long letters since, and added as few 
printed documents 3 as could be expected from her. Prom my 
cousins I hear very little now. Jeannie in Glasgow never was a 
good correspondent; I mean, always wrote remarkably bad letters, 
considering her faculty iu some other directions. Now there is a 
little tone of married woman, and much made of married woman, 
added to the duluess and long-windedness, that irritates me into — 
silence. As for the others, they all seem to think I have nothing 
to do at my age, but send them two or three letters for one! When 
my dear uncle was alive, my anxiety to hear of him overcame all 
other considerations; and I humoured this negligence more than 
was reasonable. Besides, Helen wrote pretty often, poor dear, and 
good letters, telling me something. Now, as they are all healthy, 
and 'at ease in Zion,' I mean to bear in mind, more than hereto- 
fore, that I am not healthy, and have many demands on my time 
and thought, and am, besides, sufficiently their elder to have my 
letters answered. 

I began to make a cap for old Mary; but it is impossible to get 
on with sewing at this season; so you must give her a pound of tea 
from me instead. Do you know I am not sure to this moment that 
she ever got the woollen thing I sent her through Mrs, Aitken. 
Mrs. Aitken forgot it, I know, and it was long after she said she 
had sent it to you by the carrier. 

God bless you, dear Mrs. Russell. I am in a great hurry, visitors 
having kept me up all the forenoon. Love to your father and hus- 
band. 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane Carlyle. 

I inclose a cheque ( !) for five shillings. 



1 Letter lost. 

2 Her eldest aunt; fell and dislocated the thigh-bone; lame ever since. 
Youngest aunt, Grace, is now dead (since 1867). 

3 Given to inclose tracts, &c. Poor, good Ann I 



Extracts. 
To Mrs. Russell. 

November 7, 1854. — Oh, aren't you miserable about this war? ' 
I am haunted day and night with the thought of all the women of 
England, Scotland, and Ireland, who must be in agonies of suspense 
about their nearest and dearest. Thank God I have no husband, 
or father, or son, in that horrible war. I have some few acquaint- 
ances, however, and one intimate friend — Colonel Sterling; and I 
read the list of killed and wounded always with a sick dread of 
finding his name. 

To the same. 

December 30. — I have been shut up in the house almost entirely 
for six week* with one of my long colds; but for that I should have 
been now at the Grange, where I had engaged myself to go on the 
19th. The month of country, of pure air and green fields, might 
have done me good; but I felt quite cowardly before the prospect 
of so much dressing for dinner and talking for effect, especially as 

I was to have gone this time on my own basis, Mr. C being too 

busy with his book to waste a month at present, besides having a 
sacred horror of two several lots of children who were to be there, 
and the bother about whom drove him out of all patience last year. 

For me no letter in 1854. We did not shift at all from home that 
year, but were constantly together. Addiscombe at Easter was in- 
tended (at least for her) but it misgave. Ditto the Grange with me 
through December with a day or two of January — not executable 
either when the time came. She was in poor fluctuating health; I 
in dismal continual wrestle with 'Friedrich,' the unexecutoMe book, 
the second of my twelve years' 'wrestle' in that element! My 
days were black and spiritually muddy; hers, too, very weak and 
dreamy, though wicomplaicing; never did complain once of her 
wxchosen sufferings and miserable eclipse under the writing of that 
sad book. 

One day last year (November 8. 1854) I had run out to Windsor 
(introduced by Lady Ashburton and her high people) in quest of 
Prussian prints and portraits — saw some — saw Prince Albert, my 
one interview, for about an hour, till Majesty summoned him out 
to walk. The Prince was very good and human. Next autumn 
(1855) I was persuaded out to a Suffolk week, under Edward Fitz- 
gerald's keeping, who had been a familiar of mine ever since the 
old battle of Naseby inquiries. Father, a blundering Irishman, 
once proprietor of vast estates there and in Suffolk, &c. Foolish 
Naseby monument, his. Edward still lives in Woodbridge, or 
oftenest in his coasting boat, a solitary, shy, kindhearted man. 
Farlingay was a rough, roomy farm and house, which had once 
been papa's, and where Edward still had a rough and kind home 
when he chose. I did not fare intolerably there at all; kind people, 
rather interesting to me. Snatch of country welcome on the terms. 
The good Fitz gave me a long day's driving, and, indeed, several 
others shorter, which are partly in my recollection, too. I had 
seen Aldborough, had bathed there, and thought as a guosi-deserted, 
but not the least dilapidated, place it might suit us for a lodging. 

Ugly home voyage in Ipswich steamer, &c, stuffy railway having 
grown so horrible to me. At Addiscombe some time after, I had 
three weeks, mostly of utter solitude, strange and sombre. She 
only going and coming as need was. — T. C. 

LETTER 163. 

T. Carlyle, Farlingay Hall.'' 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Aug. 14, 1855. 

No, dear, I don't take your sea-bathing place, because I have a 
place of my own in view! Positively I fancy I have found the 
coming cottage. 3 I am just going off to consult Tait about it. 
And at all events you must go and look at it with me next Monday, 
before we incur any lodging expenses, which would be best laid out 
on a place ' all to oneself.' 

I took such an amount of air and exercise yesterday as would 
have done for most nineteenth century 'females.' Started at eight 
by the boat, 4 with a good tide, and was at the station a quarter 
before nine. Was quite well situated iu my open carriage, and 
reached Brighton without the least fatigue. Bathed, the first 
thing; and then walked along the shore to a little inn I had been 
told of by Neuberg and Ballautyne, as a charming, quiet place ' for 
even Mrs. Carlyle' to stop at; — found it, of course, noisy, dirty, 
not to be even dined at by Mrs. Carlyle, and walked on still further 
along the cliffs to a village I had seen on the map, and was sure 
must be very retired. The name of it is Rottingdean. It is four 
miles at least from the Brighton station. I walked there and back 
again! and in the last two miles along the cliffs I met just one 
man! in a white smock! Thus you perceive the travelling ex- 
penses to one of the quietest sea villages in England is just, per 
boat and third class train, 3s. lOrf. ! — a convenient locality for one's 
cottage at all rates. The place itself is an old sleepy-looking lit- 

1 Thrice stupid, ludeous blotch of a ' Crimean War,' so called. 
3 On visit there to Mr. Fitzgerald. 

3 A poor old vacant hut at Rottingdean, which was to be furnished, to be 
sure! I)ear soul, what trouble she took, what hopes she had, about that! 
Sunt lachrymce rerum. 

4 Chelsea* steamboat, for London Bridge. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



tie village close on the sea, with simple poor inhabitants; not 
a trace of a lady or gentleman bather to be seen! In fact, except 
at the inn, there were no lodgings visible. I asked the maid at 
the icn, 'was it always as quiet as this?' 'Always,' she said in 
a half whisper, with a half sigh, 'a'most too quiet!' Near the 
inn, and so near the sea you could throw a stone into it, are 
three houses iu a row; the centre one old, quaint, and empty, small 
rooms, but enough of them; and capable of being make very live- 
able iu, at small cost; and there are two ' decent women ' I saw, who 
might, either of them, be trusted to keep it. But I should rill sheets 
with details without giving you a right impression. You must just 
go and look. I returned to Brighton again, after having dined at 
the Rottingdean on two fresh eggs, a plateful of homebaked bread 
and butter, and a pint bottle of Guinness's (cha-arge Is. 6d.) I 
walked miles up and down Brighton to find the agent for that cot- 
tage^ — did finally get him by miracle; name and street being both 
different from what I set out to seek; and almost committed myself 
to take the cottage for a year at 12£. (no rates or taxes whatever) or 
to take it for three months at 61. However, I took fright about 
your not liking it; and the expenses of furnishing, &c, &c, on the 
road up; and wrote him a note from Alsop's shop that he might 
not refuse any other offer and hold me engaged, till you had seen 
and approved of it. If Tait shared this cottage, and went halves 
in the furnishing, it would cost very little indeed. My only objec- 
tion to it) this morning, is that one might not be able to get it an- 
other year; and then what would be done with the furniture? But, 
oh, what a beautiful sea! blue as the Firth of Forth it was last 
night! I lay on the cliffs in the stillness, and looked at the ' beauti- 
ful Nature ' for an hour and more; which was such a doing of the 
picturesque as I have not been up to for years. The most curious 
thing is the sudden solitude beginning without gradation just where 
Kemp Town ends. It is as if the Brighton people were all enchanted 
not to pass beyond their pier. 

One can get any sort of lodgings iu Brighton. I brought away 
the card of one — very beautiful, and clean as a pin, where the lady 
'received no dogs nor children; dogs she did not dislike, but she 
dreaded their fleas! ' An excellent sitting-room and bed- room 30s. ; 
sitting-room and two bed-rooms 21. ; but then the}' are such rooms 
as one has at home, not like Eastbourne ! But Brighton is Brighton. 
Rottingdean is like a place iu a novel. 

I am stiff to-day. I had to walk to St. Paul's last night, after all 
my walking, before I got an omnibus, and then from Alsop's home. 

And last night the results of Cremorne in the King's Road were 
— what shall I say? strange, upon my honour! First I heard a 
measured tread; and then, out of the darkness, advanced on me 
eight soldiers carrying, high over their heads, a bier! on which lay 
a figure covered with a black cloth, all but the white, white face! 
And before I had recovered from the shock of that, some twenty 
yards further on, behold, precisely the same thing over again! I 
asked a working man what had happened. 'It was a great night 
at Cremorne, storming of Sebastopol; thirty or forty soldiers were 
storming, 1 when the scaffolding broke, and they all fell in on their 
own bayonets! The two who had passed were killed, they said, and 
all the others hurt.' But a sergeant, whom I accosted after, told 
me there were none killed and only three hurt badly. 

Lord Goodrich had your 'Zouaves,' 5 and it is come back with a 
farewell note to me from the lady, And Lady Sandwich brought 
on Sunday ' Anecdotes Germaniques.' Is that one of the books 
you had last? Your silent room is swept and the books dusted. 

I am making shocking writing; but my pen is horrid; my mind 
in a frightful hurry; and my hand very unsteady with yesterday's 
fatigues. 

A letter from you was eagerly asked for last night, but it came 
this morning. 

Those cows 3 must have been Phillistines in some previous state 
of existence. Ever yours, 

J. W. C. 

Extracts from Mrs. Carlyle's Journal. 

A part only of the following extracts was selected by Mr. Car- 
lyle, and a part, sufficient merely to leave a painful impression, 
without explaining the origin of his wife's discomfort. There ought 
to be no mystery about Carlyle, and there is no occasion for mys- 
tery. The diaries and other papers were placed in my hands, that 
I might add whatever I might think necessary in the way of eluci- 
dation, and in this instance I have thought it right to avail myself 
of the permission. It has been already seen that among the acquaint- 
ances iu the great world to whom Carlyle's reputation early intro- 
duced him, were Mr. and Lady Harriet Baring, afterwards Lord 
and Lady Ashburtou. Mr. Baring, one of the best and wisest men 
in the high circle of English public life, was among the first to 
recognise Carlisle's extraordinary qualities. He soon became, and 
he remained to his death, the most intimate and attached of 
Carlyle's friends. Lady Harriet was a gifted and brilliant woman, 
who cared nothing for the frivolous occupations of fashion. She 
sought out and surrounded herself with the most distinguished 
persons in politics and literature, and was the centre of a planetary 

1 Populace, soldiers, officers: was there ever seen such a transaction among 
men before? 

2 Some French booklet on the subject. 3 Lowing by night 1 



system, in which statesmen, poets, artists, every man who had raised 
! himself into notice by genuine intellectual worth, revolved, while 
she lived, as satellites. By Lady Harriet, Carlyle was ardently 
welcomed. In the society which gathered about herself and herhus- 
band, he found himself among persons whom he could more nearly 
regard as his equals than any whom he had met with elsewhere. 
He was thrown into connection with the men who were carrying 
on the business of the world, in a sphere where he could make his 
influence felt among them. He was perhaps, at one time, ambi- 
tious of taking an active part iu such affairs himself, and of ' doing 
something more for the world,' as Lord Byron said, ' than writing 
books for it.' At any rate his visits to Bath House and the Grange, 
Lord Ashburton's house in Hampshire, gave him great enjoyment, 
and for many years as much of his leisure as he could spare was 
spent in the Ashburton society. 

The acquaintance which was so agreeable to himself was less 
pleasant to Mrs. Carlyle. She was intensely proud of her husband, 
and wished to be the first with him. She had married him against 
the advice of her friends, to be the companion of a person whom 
she, and she alone, at that time, believed to be destined for some- 
thing extraordinary. She had worked for him like a servant, she 
had borne poverty and suffering. She had put up with his hu- 
mours, which were often extremely trying. As long as she felt 
that he was really attached to her, she had taken the harder parts 
of her lot lightly and jestingly, and by her incessant watchfulness 
had made it possible for him to accomplish his work. And now 
his fame was established. He had risen beyond her highest ex- 
pectations; she saw him feared, admired, reverenced, the acknow- 
ledged sovereign, at least in many eyes, of English literature; and 
she found, or thought she found, that, as he had risen she had be- 
come, what in an early letter she had said she dreaded that she 
might lie, a ' mere accident of his lot.' When he was absorbed in 
his work, she saw but little of him. The work was a sufficient ex- 
planation as long as others were no better off than she was. But 
when she found that he had leisure for Bath House, though none 
for her, she became jealous and irritable. She was herself of 
course invited there; but the wives of men of genius, like the 
wives of bishops, do not take the social rank of their husbands. 
Women understand how to make one another uncomfortable in lit- 
tle ways invisible to others, and Mrs. Carlyle soon perceived that 
she was admitted into those high regions for her husband's sake 
and not for her own. She had a fiery temper, and a strong Scotch 
republican spirit, and she would have preferred to see Carlyle 
reigning alone in his own kingdom. Her anger was wrong in it- 
self, and exaggerated in the form which it assumed. But Carlyle 
too was to blame. He ought to have managed his friendships bet- 
ter. He ought to have considered whether she had not causes of 
complaint; and to have remembered how much he owed to her 
care for him. But Carlyle was wilful, and impatient of contradic- 
tion. When his will was crossed, or resisted, his displeasure 
rushed into expressions not easily forgotten, and thus there grew 
up between these two, who at heart each admired and esteemed 
the other more than any other person in the world, a condition of 
things of which the trace is visible in this diary. The shadow 
slanted backwards over their whole lives together; and as she 
brooded over her wrongs, she came to think with bitterness of 
many recollections which she had laughed away or forgotten. 
Carlyle's letters during all this period are uniformly tender and 
affectionate, and in them was his true self, if she could but have 
allowed herself to see it. 'Oh,' he often said to me after she was 
gone, ' if I could but sec her for five minutes to assure her that I 
had really cared for her throughout all that! But she never knew 
it, she never knew it.' — J. A. F. 

October 21, 1855. — I remember Charles Buller saying of the Duch- 
ess de Praslin's murder, ' What could a poor fellow do with a wife 
who kept a journal but murder her? ' There was a certain truth 
hidden in this light remark. Your journal all about feelings ag- 
gravates whatever is factitious and morbid in you; that I have 
made experience of. And now the only sort of journal I would 
keep should have to do with what Mr. Carlyle calls 'the fact of 
things.' It is very bleak and barren, this fact of things, as I now 
see it — very; and what good is to result from writing of it in a pa- 
per book is more than I can tell. But I have taken a notion to, 
and perhaps I shall blacken more paper this time, when I begin 
quite promiscuously without any moral end in view; but just as 
the Scotch professor drank whisky, because I like it, and because 
it's cheap. 

October 22. — I was cut short in my introduction last night by Mr. 
C.'s return from Bath House. That eternal Bath House. I won- 
der how many thousand miles Mr. C. has walked between there 
and here, putting it all together; setting up always another mile- 
stone and another betwixt himself and me. Oh, good gracious! 
when I first noticed that heavy yellow house without knowing, or 
caring to know, who it belonged to. how far I was from dreaming 
that through years and years I should carry every stone's weight of 
it on my heart. About feelings already! Well.'l will not proceed, 
though the thoughts I had in my bed about all that, were tragical 
enough to fill a page of thrilling interest for myself, and though, as 
George Sand has shrewdly remarked, ' rien ne soulage comme la 
rhetorioue.' 



90 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



October 23. — A stormy day within doors, so I walked out early, 
and walked, walked, walked. If peace and quietness be not in cue's 
own power, one can always give oneself at least bodily fatigue — 
no such bad succedaneum after all. Life gets to look for me like 
a sort, of kaleidoscope — a few tilings of different colors — black pre- 
dominating, which fate shakes into new and ever new combina- 
tions, but always the same things over again. Today has been so 
like a da}' I still remember out of ten years ago; the same still 
dreamy October weather, the same tumuli of mind contrasting with 
the outer stillness; the same causes for that tumult. Then, as now, 
I hail walked, walked, walked, with no aim but to tire myself. 

October 25. — Oh, good gracious alive; what a whirlwind — or 
rather whirlpool — of a day! Breakfast had ' passed off' better or 
worse, and 1 was at work on a picture-frame, my own invention, 
and pretending to be a little work of art, when Mr. C.'s bell rang 
like mad, and was billowed by cries of ' Come, come! are you com- 
ing? ' Arrived at the second landing, three steps at a time, I saw- 
Mr. C. and Ann in the spare bedroom hazily through a waterfall! 
The great cistern had overflowed, and was raining and pouring 
down through the new ceiling, and plashing up on the new carpet. 
All the baths and basins in the house were quickly assembled on 
floor, and I, on my knees, mopping up with towels and sponges, &c. 

In spit.' of this disaster, and the shocking bad temper induced by 
it, I have bad to put on my company face to-night and receive. 

and were the party. Decidedly I must have a little of 

'that damned thing called the milk of human kindness' after all, 

for the assurance that poor was being amused kept me from 

feeling bored. 

My heart is very sore to-night, but I have promised myself not to 
make this journal a 'miserere,' so I will take a dose of morphia 
and do the impi issible to deep. 

October 31. — Rain! rain! rain! ' Oh, Lord! this is too ridiculous,' 
as the Annandale farmer exclaimed, starting to his feet when it be- 
gan pouring, in the midst of his prayer for a dry hay time. I have 
no hay to be got in, or anything else that I know of, to be got in; 
but. I have a plentiful crop of thorns to be got out, and that, too, 
requires good weal her. To day's post brought the kindest of let- 
ters from Geraldine, enclosing a note from Lady de Capel Broke 
she is staying with, inviting me to ( lakley Hall. " This lady's ' faith 
in things unseen ' excited similar faith on my part, and I would go, 
had I nothing to consider but how I should like it when there. I 
had to write a refusal, however. Mr. C. is ' neither to hold nor bind ' 
when I make new visiting acquaintances on my own basis, how- 
ever unexceptionable the person may be. The evening devoted to 
mending Mr. C.'s trowsers among other things! ' Being au only 
child,' I never ' wished ' to sew men's trowsers — no, never! 

November 1. — At last a fair morning to rise to, thanks God! 
Ma'zzini never says 'thank God' by any chance, but always 
'thanks God;' ami I find it sound more grateful. Pine weather 
outside in fact, but indoors blowing a devil of a gale. Off into 
space, then, to get the green mould that has been gathering upon 
me of late days brushed off by human contact. 

November 5. — Alone this evening. Lady A. in town again; and 
Mr. C. of course at Bath House. 

When I think of what I is 

And what I used to was, 
I gin t.. think I've sold myself 

For very little cas. 

November 6. — Mended Mr. C.'s dressing-gown. Much movement 
under the free sky is needful for me to keep my heart from throb- 
bing up into my bead and maddening it. They must be comforta- 
ble people who have leisure to think about going to Heaven! 
My most constant and pressing anxiety is to keep out of Bed- 
lam! that's all .... Ach! If there were no feelings 'what 
steady sailing craft we should be,' as the nautical gentleman of some 
not el says. 

November 7. — Dear, dear! What a sick day this has been with 
me. Oh, my mother! nobody sees when I am suffering now; and 
I have learnt to suffer ' All to myself.' From 'only childless' to 
that, is a far and a rough road to travel. 

Oh, little did my mother think. 

The day she cradled me. 
'1'lte lands I was to travel in. 

The death I was to dee. 

November, — ' S'exagerer ses droits, oublier ceux des autres, cela 
peut etre fort cottunode; mais cela n'est pas toujours profitable et 
on a lieu souvent tie s'eu repentir. 11 vaudrait mieux souvent 
avoir ties vices qu'un caractere difficile. Pour que les femmes 
perdent les families, il faut qu'elles aillent jusqu'a l'inconduite, 
jusqu'au desordre. Pour les y pousser, il sufrit souvent qu'un 
homme g3.te totites ses bonnes qualil.es et les leurs par des precedes 
injustes, de la durete et du dedain.' 

It is not always, however, that unjust treatment, harshness, ami 
disdain in her husband drives a woman jusqu'au desordre, but it 
drives her to something, anil something iiot to his advantage any 
more than to hers. 

To-day has been like other days outwardly. I have done this 
and that, and people have come and gone, but all as in a bad 
dream. 

November 13. — Taken by to Lord John's lecture at Exeter 



Hall. The crowd was immense, and the applause terrific; the lec- 
ture 'water bewitched.' One thing rather puzzled me: at every 
mention of the name Christ (and there was far too much of it) the 
clapping and stamping rose to such a pitch that one expected al- 
ways it must end in 'hip, hip, hurrah.' Did the Young Men's 
Christian Association take his Lordship's recognition of Christ as a 
personal compliment, or did it strike them with admiration that a 
Lord should know about Christ? 

November 20. — I have been fretting inwardly all this day at the 
prospect of having to go anil appeal before I he' Tax Commissioners 
at Kensington tomorrow morning. Still, it must be done. If Mr. 
C. should go himself he would run his bead against some post in 
his impatience; and besides, for me, when it is over it will be over, 
whereas he would not get the better of it for twelve months — if 
ever at all. 

November 21. — Omemmram! not one wink of sleep the whole 
night through! so great the ' rale mental agony in my own inside' 
at the thought of "that korrid appealing. It was with feeling like 
the ghosl ol' a deatl dog, that I rose ami dressed and drank my 
coffee, and then started for Kensington. Mr. ( '. said ' the voice of 
honour seemed to call on him to go himself.' But either it did not 
call loud enough, or he would not listen to that (banner. I went 
in a cab. lo save all my breath for appealing. Set down at 30 
Hornton Street, I found a dirty private like bouse, only with Tax 
Office painted on the door. A dirty woman-servant opened the 
deor, and told me the Commissioners would not be there for half- 
an-hour, but I might walk up. There were already some half- 
score of men assembled in the waiting-room, among whom I saw 
the man who cleans our clocks, and a young apothecary of Cheyne 
Walk. All the others, to look at them, could not have been sus- 
pected for an instant. I should have said, of making a hundred a 
year. Feeling in a false position, I stood by myself at a window ' 
and 'thought shame' (as children say). Men trooped in by twos 
and threes, till the small room was pretty well filled; at last a 
woman showed herself. O my! did 1 ever know the full value 
of any sort of woman — as woman — before! By this time some 
benches had been brought in, and I was silting nearest the door. 
The woman sat. down on the same bench with me, aud, misery ac- 
quainting one with strange bedfellows, we entered into conversa- 
tion without having been introduced, and I had ' the happiness,' as 
Allan termed it, 'of seeing a woman more miserable than myself.' 
Two more women arrived at intervals, one a young girl of Dundee, 
'sent by my uncle that's ill;' who looked to he always recapitulat- 
ing inwardly what she had been told to say to the Commissioners. 
The other, a widow, and such a goose, poor thing; she was bring- 
ing an appeal against no overcharge in her individual paper, but 
against the doubling of the Income Tax. She had paid the double 
lax once, she said, because she was told they would take her goods 
for it if she didn't — and it was so disgraceful for one in a "small 
business to have her goods taken; besides it was very disadvantage- 
ous; but now that it was come round again she would give. She 
seemed to attach an irresistible pathos To the title of widow, this 
woman. 'And me a widow, mii'iii,' was the winding up of her 
every paragraph. The men seemed as worried as the women, 
though they put a better face on it, even carrying on a sort of sickly 
laughing and bantering with one another. ' First-come lady,' 
called the clerk, opening a small side door, and I stept forward into 
a gn i ml peutetre. There was au instant of darkness while the one 
door was shut behind and the other opened in front; and there I 
stood in a dim room where three men sat round a huge table spread 
with papers. One held a pen ready over an open ledger; another 
was taking snuff, and had taken still worse in his time, to judge 
by his shaky, clayed appearance. The third, who was plainly the v 
cock of thai dune-heap, was sitting for Rhadamanthus — a Iiiiada- 
manthus without the justice. 'Name,' said the Inn tail owl looking 
individual holding the pen. 'Carlyle.' 'What'?' 'Carlyle. 
Seeing he still looked dubious, I spelt it for him. 'Ha!' cried 
Rhadamanthus, a big, bloodless-faced, insolent-looking fellow. 
' What is this? why is Mr. Carlyle not come himself? Didn't he 
get a letter ordering him to appear? Mr. Carlyle wrote some non- 
sense about being exempted from coming, and 1 desired au answer 
to be sent that he must come, must do as other people.' 'Then, 
sir,' I said, ' your desire has been neglected, it would seem, my 
husband having received no such letter; and I was told by one of 
your fellow Commissioners that Mr. Carlyle's personal appearance 
was not indispensable.' 'Huffgh! Huffgh! what does Mr. Carlyle 
mean by saving he has no income from his writings, when he him- 
self fixed it in the beginning at a hundred and fifty? ' ' It means, 
sir, that, in ceasing to write, one ceases to be paid for writing, and 
Sir. Carlyle has published nothing for several years.' 'Huffgh! 
Huffgh! 1 understand nothing about that.' 'I do,' whispered the 
snuff-taking Commissioner at my ear. 'lean quite understand a 
literary man does not always make money. I would take it off, 
for my share, but (sinking his voice still lower) I am only one voice 
here, and not the most important.' 'There,' said 1, handing to 
Rhadamanthus Chapman and Hall's account; ' that will prove Mr. 
Carlyle's statement.' 'What am I to make of that? Huffgh! we 
should have Mr. Carlyle here to swear to this be lore we believe it.' 
' If a gentleman's word of honour written at the bottom of that 
paper is not enough, you can put me on my oath: l am ready to 
swear to it.' "You! you, indeed! No.no! we can do nothing with 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



91 



your oath.' ' But, sir, I understand my husband's affairs fully, 
better than he does himself.' That I can well believe; but we 
can make nothing of this,' flinging my document contemptuously 
on the table. The homed owl picked it up, glanced over it while 
Rhadamanthus was tossing papers about, and grumbling about 
•people that wouldn't conform to rules;' then handed it back to 
him, saying deprecatingly : 'But, sir, this is a very plain- state- 
ment.' 'Then what has Mr. Carlyle to live upon? You don't 
mean to tell me he lives on that? ' pointing lo the document. 
'Heaven forbid, sir! but I am not here to explain what Mr. Carlyle 
has to live on, only to declare his income from literature during the 
last three years.' 'True! true!' mumbled the not-rnost-important 
voice at my elbow. 'Mr. Carlyle, I believe, has landed income.' 
'Of which,' said I haughtily, for rnj- spirit was up, 'I have for- 
tunately no account to render in this kingdom and to this board.' 
' Take off fifty pounds, say a hundred — take off a hundred pounds,' 
said Rhadamanthus to the horned owl. ' If we write Mr. Carlyle 
down a hundred and fifty he has no reason to complain, I think. 
There, you may go. Mr. Carlyle has no reason to complain.' 
Second-come woman was already introduced, and I was motioned 
to the door; but I could not depart without saying that 'at all 
events there was no use in complaining, since they had the power 
to enforce their decision.' On stepping out, my first thought was, 
what a mercy Carlyle didn't come himself! For the rest, though it 
might have gone better, I was thankful that it had not gone worse. 
When one has beeu threatened with a great injustice, one accepts 
a smaller as a favour. 

Went back to spend the evening with Geraldine when Mr. C. set 
forth for Bath House. Her ladj'ship in town for two days. 

November 28. — Took the black silk presented me with last 

Christmas to Catchpool, that it might be made up. ' Did you buy 
this yourself, ma'am?' said Catchpool, rubbing it between her fin- 
ger and thumb. 'No, it was a present; but why do you ask?' 
'Because, ma'am, I was thinking, if you bought it yourself, you 
had been taken in. It is so poor; very, trashy indeed. I don't 
think I ever saw so trashy a moire.' 

December 4. — I hardly ever begin to write here that I am not 
tempted to break out into Jobisms about my bad nights. How I 
keep ou my legs and in my senses with such little snatches of 
sleep is a wonder to myself. Oh, to cure anyone of a terror of 
annihilation, just put him on my allowance of sleep, and see if he 
don't get to long for sleep, sleep, unfathomable and everlasting 
sleep as the only conceivable heaven. 

December 11. — Oh dear! I wish this Grange business were well 
over. Itjoccupies me (the mere preparation for it) to the exclusion 
of all quiet thought and placid occupation. To have to care for 
my dres? at this time of day more than I ever did when young and 
pretty and happy (God bless me, to think that I was once all that !) 
on penalty of being regarded as a blot on the Grange gold and 
azure, is really too bad. Ach Oott! if we had been left in the 
sphere of life we belong to, how much better it would have been 
for us in mauy ways! 

March 24, 1856.— We are now at the 24th of March, 1856, and 
from this point of time, my journal, let us renew our daily inter- 
course without looking back. Looking back was not intended by 
nature, evidently, from the fact that our eyes are in our faces and 
not in our hind heads. Look straight before you, then, Jane Car- 
lyle, and, if possible, not over the heads of things either, away 
into the distant vague. Look, above all, at the duty nearest hand, 
and what's more, do it. Ah, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is 
weak, and four weeks of illness have made mine weak as water. 
Ifo galloping over London as in seven-leagued boots for me at pres- 
ent. To-day I walked with effort one little mile, and thought it a 
great feat; but if the strength .has gone out of me, so also lias the 
unrest. I can sit and lie even very patiently doing nothing. To 
be sure, I am always going on with the story in my head, as poor 
Paulet expressed it; but even that has taken a dreamy contempla- 
tive character, and excites no emotions ' to speak of. ' In fact, 
sleep has come to look to me the highest virtue and the greatest 
happiness; that is, good sleep, untroubled, beautiful, like a child's. 
Ah me! 

March 26. — To-day it has blown knives and files; a cold, rasping, 
savage day; excruciating for sick nerves. Dear Geraldine. as if 
she would contend with the very elements ou my behalf, brought 
me a bunch of violets and a bouquet of the loveliest most fragrant 
flowers. Talking with her all I have done or could do. ' Have 
mercy upon me, O Lord; for I am weak: O Lord, heal me, for my 
bones are vexed. My soul also is sore vexed: but thou, O Lord, 
how long? Return, O Lord, deliver my soul: O save me for thy 
mercies' sake.' 

. March 27. — Mr. C. took Nero out with him to-night, and half an 
hour after he opened the door with his latch-key and called in, 'Is 
that vermin come back?' Having received my horrified 'No!' he 
hurried off again, and for twenty minutes I was in the agonies of 
one's dog lost, my heart beating up into my ears. At last I heard 
Mr. C.'s feet in the street; and, oh joy! heard him gollaring at 
something, and one knew what the little bad something was. Ach! 
we could have better spared a better dog. 

March 30. — Plattnauer told me how the 'grande passion' be- 
tween ■ and had gone to the dogs utterly — the general re- 
cipients of ' grandes passions.' 



Oh. waly, waly, love is bonnie 
A little while when it is new; 

But when it's aula 

It waxeth cauld. 
And melts away like morning dew. 

Beautiful verse, sweet and sad, like barley sugar dissolved in tears. 
About the morning dew, however! I should rather say, ' Goes out 
like candle snuff ' would be a truer simile; only that would not 
suit the rhyme. 

April 11. — To-day I called on 'my lady' come to town for the 
season. She was perfectly civil, for a wonder. Today also I 
lighted upon an interesting man. It was in our baker's shop. 
While the baker was making out my bill he addressed some coun- 
sel to a dark little man with a wooden leg and a basket of small 
wares. That made me look at the man to watch its effect upon 
him. 'I'll tell you what to do,' said this Jesuit of a baker; 'Go 
and join some Methodists' chapel for six months; make yourself 
agreeable to them, and you'll soon have friends that will help you 
in your object.' The man of the wooden leg said not a word, but 
looked hard in the baker's face with a half-perplexed, half-amused, 
and wholly disagreeing expression. 'Nothing like religion,' went 
on the tempter. ' for gaining a man friends. Don't you think so, 
ma'am? ' (catching my eye on him). ' 1 think,' said 1, ' that what- 
ever this man's object may be, he is not likely to be benefited in 
the long run by constituting himself a hypocrite.' The man's 
black eye flashed on me a look of thanks and approbation. ' Oh/ 
said the baker, ' I don't mean him to be a hypocrite, but truly re- 
ligious, you know.' 'If this man will be advised by me,' I said, 
' he will keep himself clear of the true religion that is purposely put 
on some morning to make himself friends.' 'Yes,' said the poor 
man pithily, 'not that at no price!' In my enthusiasm at his an- 
swer, and the manner of it, I gave him — sixpence! and inquired 
into his case. He had beeu a baker for some time, met with an 
accident, and ' had to let his leg be taken,' after trying over eight 
years to keep it. Meanwhile his grandfather died, leaving him a 
small property worth 401 a year, which he was still kept out of for 
want of a small sum of money to prove his right to it. I did not 
understand the law part of the story, but undertook to get some 
honest lawyer to look at his papers and give him advice for nothing. 

April 21. — I feel weaklier every day, and my soul also is sore 
vexed — Oh how long! I put myself in an omnibus, being unable 
to walk, and was carried to Islington and back again. What a 
good shilling's-worth of exercise! The Angel at Islington! It 
was there I was set down on my first arrival in London, and Mr. 
C. with Edward Irving was waiting to receive me. 

The past is past, and gone is gone. 

May 29. — Old Mrs. D. said to me the other day when I encoun- 
tered her after two years, 'Yes, ma'am, my daughter is dead: only 
child, house, and everything gone from me; and I assure you I 
stand up in the world as if it was not the world at all any more.' 

Mr. B. says nine-tenths of the misery of human life proceeds ac- 
cording to his observation from the institution of marriage. He 
should say from the demoralisation, the desecration, of the institu- 
tion of marriage, and then I should cordially agree with him. 

June 27. — Went with Geraldine to Hampstead. 

Various passages in this journal seemed to require explanation. 
Miss Geraldine Jewsbury, who was Mrs. Carlyle's most intimate 
friend, was the only person living who could give it. I sent her 
the book. She returned it to me with a letter, from which I ex- 
tract the following passages: — 

' The reading has been like the calling up ghosts. . . . It was 
a very bad time with her just then. No one but herself or one 
constantly with her knows what she suffered physically as well as 
morally. 

'She was miserable: more abidingly and intensely miserable 
than words can utter. The misery was a reality, no matter whether 
her imagination made it or not. . . . Mr. C. once said to me 
of her that she had the deepest and tenderest feelings, but narrow. 
Any other wife would have laughed at Mr. C.'s bewitchment with 
Lady A.; but to her there was a complicated aggravation which 
made it very hard to endure. Lady A. was admired for sayings 
and doings for which she was snubbed. She saw through Lady A.'s 
little ways and grande-dwme manners, and knew what they were 
worth. She contrasted them with the daily, hourly endeavours she 
was making that his life should be as free from hindrances as possi- 
ble. He put her aside for his work, but lingered in the "Primrose 
path of dalliance " for the sake of a great lady, who liked to have a 
philosopher iu chains. Lady A. was excessively capricious towards 
her, and made her feel they cared more about him than about her. 

'She was never allowed to visit anywhere but at the Grange; 
ami the mortifications and vexations she felt, though they were 
often and often self-made, were none the less intolerable to her. 
At first she was charmed with Lady A., but soon found she had no 
real hold ou her, nor ever could or would have. The sufferings, 
were real, intense, and at times too grievous to be borne. C. did 
not understand all this, and only felt her to be unreasonable. 

' The lines on which her character was laid down were very 
grand, but the result was blurred and distorted and confused. 

' In marrying she undertook what she felt to be a grand and 
noble life task: a task which, as set forth by himself, touched all 



92 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



that was noble and heroic, and inspired her imagination from its 
difficulty. She believed in him, and her faith was unique. _ No 
one else did. Well, but she was to be the companion, friend, 
helpmate — her own gifts were to be cultivated and recognised by 
him. She was bright and beautiful, with a certain star-like radi- 
ance and grace. She had devoted to him her life, which so many 
other men had desired to share. She had gone off into the desert 
with him. She had taken up poverty, obscurity, hardship even, 
cheerfully, willingly, aud with an enthusiasm of self-sacrifice, on 
asking to be allowed to minister to him. The offering was ac- 
cepted, but, like the precious things flung by Benveuuto into the 
furnace when his statue was molten, they were all consumed in 
the flames; and lie was so intent and occupied by what he was 
bringing forth that he could take no heed of her individual treas- 
ures. They were all swallowed up in the great whole. In her 
case it was'the living creature in the midst of the fire which felt 
.and suffered. He gave her no human help nor tenderness. 

'Bear in mind that her inmost life was solitary — no tenderness, 
no caresses, no loving words; nothing out of which one's heart can 
make the wine of life. A glacier on a mountain would have been 
as human a companionship. He suffered too; but he put it all 
into his work. She had only the desolation and barrenness of hav- 
ing all her love and her life laid waste. Six years she lived at 
Craigenputtock. and she held out. She had undertaken a task, 
and she knew that, whether recognised or not, she did help him. 
Her strong persistent will kept her up to the task of pain. Then 
they came back to the world, and the strain told on her. She did 
not falter from her purpose of helping and shielding him, but she 
became warped. — Geraldine E. Jewsbury.' 

LETTER 104. 
Mrs. Russell, Thornhill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Thursday, July 3, 1856. 

Dearest Mrs. Russell, — Your letter quite warmed my heart, and 
gave me a pull towards Scotland, stronger than I had yet felt. I 
think it in the highest degree unlikely, and certainly it will not be 
my own fault if I am there without seeing you. But we have no 
programme positively laid out yet for the summer, or rather the 
autumn. Mr. C. always hithers and thithers in a weary intermin- 
able way, before he can make up his mind what, he would like 
most to do. And so, as I don't like wandering in uncertainties, 
with a net of 'ifs.'and ' huts,' aud ' perhapses,' aud 'possibles,' 
and ' probables ' about my feet, I have got into the way of standing 
aside, and postponing my own plans, till he has finally got to some 
conclusion. His present' ' most probably' is that he will go to his 
sister's, at a farm within a few miles of Annan, and ' enjoy perfect 
solitude for a time.' I mean, in that case, to stream off after 'my 
own sweet will;' as he would not need me with him at the Gill, 
and indeed there would be no room for me there, and I should only 
complicate his case. When he has settled to go there, or anywhere 
else when' I am not needed, I shall proceed to scheme out a pro- 
gramme for myself, and I want to go to Scotland too, and I want 
to see you, and to see my cousins in Fife, and my old people at 
Haddington. But I do not take up all that practically at the pres- 
ent stage of the business, in case be take some new thought, with 
which my wishes could not so easily combine. I don't see any 
hope of his quitting London anyhow till the beginning of August, 
at soonest, which is a pity; the present month would be passed so 
much more pleasantly in the green country than here, where every- 
thing seems working up to spontaneous combustion. I was think- 
ing the other night, at ' the most magnificent ball of the season.' 
how much better I should like to see people making hay, than all 
these ladies in laces and diamonds, waltzing! One grows so sick 
of diamonds, and bare shoulders, ami all that sort of thing, after a 
while. It is the old story of the Irishman put into a Sedan chair 
without a bottom: ' If it weren't for the honour of the thing. I 
might as well have walked!' 

I shall write, dear Mrs. Russell, whenever I know for certain 
what we are going to do. And, as I have great faith in the mag- 
netic power of wishes, I pray you to wish in the meantime that I 
may come; as I, on my side, shall not fail to wish it strongly. 

I am just going off this burning day to — sit for my picture! rather 
late! But I have a friend, who has constituted herself a portrait- 
painter, and she has a real genius for the business; and Ruskin told 
her she must paint a portrait with no end of pains, must, give it 
'twenty sittings at the least.' Aud I suppose she thinks I am the 
most patient woman she knows, and may give her these twenty 
sittings, out. of desire for her improvement. As she is a clever, 
charming creature, 1 don't feel all the horror that might be expected 
of my prospect. 

My kind regards to your husband and father. 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 165. 

After Addiscombe and three months more of deadly wrestling 
with Friedrich and the mud elements, we went to the Grange for 
Christmas; stayed for several weeks. Company at first aristocra- 
tic and select (Lord Lansdowne and Robert Lowe); then miscellan- 



eous, shifting, chiefly of the scientific kind (Jowett, and an Oxon- 
ian or two among them), some of whom have left more than the 
shadow of an impression on me. Our last Grange Christmas, such 
as it proved, under presidency of that great lady. We returned in 
January, both of us. I at least much broken by this long course 
of gaieties, resumed work for 1856, and with dreary obstinacy kept 
pushing, pushing. The intolerable heats of July forced us north 
again. Ride to Edinburgh in the Lady Ashburton's royal carriage, 
which took fire, and at Newcastle bad to be abandoned, dustiest 
and painfullest of rides, regardless of expense, and yet actually 
taking lire and falling flat, like Dagon of the Philistines. Nothing 
-nod in it but the admirable bearing of that great lady under its 
badness. The Ashburtons off towards Ross-shire next morning. 
I under promise to follow thither by-and-by. Towards Auchtertool 
Manse we two, where after some days I left my dear woman aud 
took refuge with my sister Mary at the Gill, near Annan, seeking 
and finding perfect solitude, kindness, and silence (the first time 
there) lor a good few weeks. 

Scotsbrig ten miles off, but that was now shut to me. Poor 
brother John had tragically lost his wife; was much cast down, 
and hail now, most unwisely as I thought, tilled Scotsbrig with his 
orphaned step-sous — three mischievous boys, whom to this day 
none of us could ever get to like. Scotsbrig accessible only on a 
riding call at this time. — T.C. 

T. Carlyle, The Gill. 

Auchtertool: July 29, 1856. 

I am glad that all has gone so well with you hitherto. ' A good 
beginning makes a good ending,' and we have both begun more 
prosperously than could have been anticipated. Even the lost 
clogs are quite well supplied, 1 find, by the things I bought, and 
which must have been made for the wife of Goliath of Gath; and 
they have got me a new box of Seidlilz powders, and new chloro- 
form from Kirkcaldy. I have needed to take neither, ' thanks 
God.' For the rest all goes well with me also; only no sea-bathing 
has been practicable yet, nor does it look as if it would ever be 
practicable here ; the dog-cart having many other more important 
demands on it, as well as old John and Walter himself. There are 
preachings going on just now, at which Waller has to assist. Last 
Sunday his place was supplied at his own church by a grey headed 
preacher called Douglas, who flattered himself he had been at 
school with you; but the Thomas Carlyle he had been school-fel- 
low to 'had reddish hair, and a sharp fare.' I am never done 
thanking heaven for the freshness, and cleanness, and quietness 
into which I have plumped down; and for my astonishingly com- 
fortable bed, and the astonishing kindness and good humour that 
wraps me about like an eider-down quilt! It is next thing to be- 
ing at Templand! I could almost imitate old ' Kelty,' ' anil fall to 
writing ' A Visit to my Relations in the Country,' followed up by 
' Wains of Comfort' in verse! Of course I am sad at times, at ali 
times sad as death, but that I am used to. aud don't mind. And 
for the sickness, ii is quite gone since the morning 1 loll Chelsea; 
and 1 am as content, for the time being, as it were possible for me 
to be anywhere on the face of this changeful earth. 

Of ionise I will never be ' within wind ' of Scotsbrig without go- 
ing lo see Jamie and Isabella, who have treated me always with the 
utmost kindness. If I had been their own sister they could not 
have made me feel more at home than I have always done under 
their roof. I never forget kindness, nor, alas! unkindness either! 

My plans are still in the vague; I feel no haste to-' see my way.' 
My cousins seem to expect and wish me to make a long visit, and 
I am not at all likely to take to feeling dull nowadays beside people 
who really care for me, and have true hearts, and plenty of natural 
sense. Besides I have two invitations to dinner for next week! 
and have made acquaintance with several intelligent people. Mean- 
while I have written to my aunt Elizabeth, who I believe is alone 
just now at Morningside, and also to Miss Donaldson, to announce 
my proximity; and it will depend on their answers whether I pay 
them a few hours' visit from here, or a longer one when I leave 
here altogether. 

Give my kind regards to Mary and the rest. I am sure you will 
want for no attention she can show you, or she must be greatly 
changed from the kind soul I knew her at Craig o' Put tu. 

Faithfully yours. 

Jam.: W. C. 

LETTER ICO. 

My Jeannie has come across to Craigenvilla (fond reminiscences 
of Craigenputtock!), her aunts' new garden residence of their own 
in Edinburgh, Morningside quarter, same neat little place where 
the surviving two yet live (1869). They had all gone deep into 
conscious 'devotion.' religious philanthropy, prayer meetings, 
&c. Ac., but were felt to "be intrinsically honest-minded women, 
with a true affection for their niece, however pagan! 

Old Betty's ! one child, a promising young man. who had grown 
to be a journeyman watchmaker, was struck with paralysis; pow- 
erless absolutely, all but the head, in which sad state his unweari 
able, unconquerable mother watched over him night and day till 
he died.— T. C. 



Old scribbling governess person. 



2 Old Haddington nurse- 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



93 



T. Carlyle, The Gill. 
Craigenvilla, Morningside, Edinburgh: Thursday, Aug. 7, 1856. 

Heaven and earth! I have been watching these three days for 
an hour's quiet to write in, but one would say there had been a con- 
spiracy of tilings in general to prevent me. The day before yester- 
day I bathed at Kirkcaldy, and walked to Auchtertool after, and 
the fatigue was too much, and I was up to uothing but lying on the 
sofa all the evening, which delayed my packing till yesterday 
morning; and I got up at half after six, to leave time for a letter, 
and it was not till "prayers' were over, and the breakfast ready, 
that I was ready to sit down. Immediately after breakfast the 
dog-cart came round to take me to the half after eleven boat. I 
tried writing again at Betty's; I could do nothing effectually ex- 
cept cry. She was so glad over me, so motherlike — and that poor 
dying lad, and her white worn face, and compressed lips; and the 
smile far more touching than any tears! Oh, it was so dreadfully 
sad, and yet her kisses, and the loving words about my father and 
mother, made me so happy! Then, when I got here to tea, my 
aunts were so unexpectedly tender and glad over me. I tried writ- 
ing again in my bedroom, but it was lighted with gas, and I found 
I could not put the light out too soon to save my life. This morn- 
ing, again, I got up at half-past six to write to you; but I had pa- 
per and ink, and no pen! so went to bed again, and lay till half- 
past seven, amidst a tearing rumble of carts, that seemed to drive 
over mj' brain. 

I go home : to-night; anil shall be there till Monday or Tuesday 
(address Sunny Bank till Monday, if you write), then back here, 
and I fear I cannot avoid slaying a few days next time, in spite of 
the sleeping difficulties; but they are so kind, my aunts. By the 
end of the next week, anyhow, I hope to get to Auchtertool again. 
I will write from Haddington — this steel pen is too dreadful. 

Yours, 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 167. 
T. Carlyle, The Gill. 
Sunny Bank, Haddington : Friday, Aug. 9, 1856. 

I got here last night about seven. The carriage was waiting for 
me at the station, but this time empty; no kind Miss Kate in it. 
We came in at the back gate; and when we turned round the 
house I saw Miss Jess, or rather I saw a face, or rather eyes strain- 
ing at the dining-room window with a look I shall remember while 
I live. The next moment I was in her arms; and then my 'god- 
mother' tottered blindly forward, and took me in hers; and the 
two dear old women clasped and kissed and wept over me both to- 
gether, and called out 'Jeannie, Jeanuie!' 'Oh, my own bairn!' 
' My angel ' (! !) and ever so many beautiful names. Mrs. Donald- 
son and Miss Eliza - had kindly retired to their own room, that the 
meeting might transact itself in peace. A beautiful tea was wait- 
ing on tfie table — all so pretty and calm and good! It looked like 
one of those entertainments spread for the good boys that ' went 
out to poos their fortunes ' in my godmother's fairy tales; and my 
godmother herself, like the good fairy, so little, oh, so little, she 
has grown! and her face so little and round, and so sweet! 
And Miss Jess has been transformed by Kate's death into an active, 
self-forgetting providence for the older and blinder sister. She 
waits upon her, cuts her bread into mouth fuls, is gentle and 
thoughtful for her, reads aloud to- her (Miss Donaldson tells me), 
she herself being about eighty; and instead of complaints about her 
own ailments, it is all now ' Poor Jean ! ' and the loss she had in 
Kate. The hearts of these two old women are as fresh as gowans. 
It is like being pretty well up towards heaven, being here. And 
what a house! so quiet and clean, and so perfectly the same as I 
knew it thirty years ago! The same papers, the same carpets, the 
same everything that I made acquaintance with when I was a child, 
in perfect condition still. I expect, to sleep in my great comfort- 
able four posted bed now that the first exciting night is over, and 
shall stay till the middle of next week, I think. My aunts were 
extremely kind, and expect me to make them a long visit on my re- 
turn ; but that is not possible, on account of the gas in my bedroom 
(at Morningside) and the public road passing the window, where 
carts grind from three in the morning. Besides that I like being 
at Auchtertool, and they want me there for all the time I can stay. 
Everybody is so kind to me — oh, so kind ! that I often burst out 
crying with pure thankfulness to them all. 

Betty said yesterday, speaking of the photograph I had sent her, 
the one with the bonnet and the dog, and which, together with 
yours, she has got handsomely framed and keeps in a pocket-hand- 
kerchief in a drawer! ' It has a look o' ye, but I dinnaken what 
that white thing is aboot the face !' ' That is the white roses of my 
bonnet, Betty.' 'A weel ! a weel ! May be sae! but as ye wur 
kindly sending me yer pictur, dear, I wud hae liket better ye had 
gotten't dune wi' yer bare pow! ' I promised her one with the bare 
pow, but said, ' You know, it is a shame for me to be without a cap 
or a bonnet at this age.' ' Ay, ay, I dar' say, it's no very richt; but 
ye ken, bairn, ye wasne brocht up to dae just like ither folk; at a' 

' To Haddington, to Misses Donaldson (eldest of them her 'godmother,' as 
Waso''vivs remembered). 
'- Tin: famed Cantab, doctor's (Dr. Donaldson) mother and sister. 



rates I'll hae the bare pow if ye please; though I wudna be thocht 
ower greedy! ' Dear.darling old Betty! She gets no rest night or 
day for that poor spectre of a son; and it looks to me he may live for 
years in this suffering, hopeless state. And the husband, though a 
good enough man in his way — sober and laborious, and all that — has 
not the refinement or the spirituality of Betty, and can be but a sorry 
comforter to her in her sore trouble. She called me back as I was 
coming away yesterday to say, ' Dear, wull ye tell Miss Doual'son, 
for I am sure it 'ill please her to hear it, that the Bish'p ' is rale 
gude to us, puir auld manny! ' 

I had two bathes in the sea; neither did me any good — the first 
a great deal of harm, by ill luck. Just the day after I wrote — I had 
liad no bathing — Walter took me to Aberdour; and I was to partly 
Sindress, and get a bathing gown at Aberdour House, where Mrs. 
Major Liddle lives. She gave me the key of the park, that Maggie 
and I might walk through it to the shore; but the key proved a 
wrong one, and, as there was no time to return for the right key, 
I proposed to Maggie to leap from the top of the wall, which was 
only high on the off-side. She positively declined ; and we were at 
a fix, when a working man passing, I called to him, and asked him 
to catch us in leaping. He took me between his big thumbs, one 
on my left side, and the other, alas! on my right breast — that un- 
lucky breast I am always hurting! There! I thought to myself, as 
I found my feet, ' There is something to serve me for six weeks 
again ! ' 

I suffered a good deal for the first two or three days, and lost my 
just- recovered sleep. It (the pain) is going off, however, though 
still a nuisance, especially when I use my right arm. Remember 
that in estimating the virtue of this very long letter. 

I inclose a note from Lady A., which was forwarded to me here 
this morning. 

I am not sure where to address; but, as one letter was sent to 
Scotsbrig, I had best send this one to the Gill. 

Yours faithfully, 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 168. 

T. Carlyle, The Gill. 

Craigenvilla, Morningside: Tuesday, August 19, 1S56. 

Oh, dear me! I am back from Haddington; and a sad day yester- 
day was. The people at Haddington seem all to grow so good and 
kind as the}' grow old. That isn't the way with us in the south. 
It wasn't the Miss Donaldsons only that made much of me. and 
cried over me at parting, as if I were ' their own bairn.' Mr. How- 
den. Mrs. Howdeu, and all of them still alive, that knew my father 
and mother, were in tears; and poor old Mr. Lea, 2 who has other- 
wise lost his wits, said, ' Oh, Jeannie, Jeannie, when you come 
again you won't find me here!' and then he said angrily to Miss 
Brown, ' Are you going to let that lassie go away by herself? send 
the Man with her.' (The Man, meaning his keeper.) It would have 
touched you to the heart to see poor Jess Donaldson dauudering 
about, opening drawers and presses to find something to give me. 
It was her chief employment all the time I was there. One day it 
was an Indian shawl; the next a real lace veil; the next a diamond 
ring, and so on, till the last hour, when after my boxes were all 
packed, she suddenly bethought her that I used to like old china, 
and took me privately to the press that contained her long prized 
Indian china, and bade me take as much of it as I cared to carry; 
and then, when I told her my boxes were full, she said, ' Take my 
work-basket, dear, to pack it in; I shall never need it any more.' 
But inanimate objects were not all that I brought from home with 
me. I brought two live plants in flower-pots, one out of our own 
garden, and two live — oh. gracious! I picture your dismay! — 'what- 
ever' will you say or sing? — two live — ca-ca-naries! They were 
born in our own house, the darlings; and poor Mrs. Howden made 
with her own hands a black silk bag to draw over the cage, and 
trimmed it with braid. You may still hope that they shall get eaten 
by my aunt's cat, or my cousin's terrier, or, at least, by the cat or 
Nero "at home. ' But I hope better things, though I thus speak.' 3 
At all events, they shan't plague you the least in the world; and it 
was a luck for me yesterday in coming away that I had these live 
things to look after. 

Aren't you a spoiled child, without the childness and the spoiling, 
to go and write in that plaintive, solemn way about 'help of some 
connexions of Jane's in Glasgow,' as if you were a desolate orphan 
' thrown out sangfroid* to charity. ' If you weren't satisfied with 
the duffle you got, why couldn't you have said so straightforwardly, 
and told me you wished me to choose another? But I was to do it 
only ' if I wanted a lark,' or ' if it didn't satisfy me,' &c, &c. You 
know very well that if you had told me to go fifty miles to buy your 
dressing-gown, and that you were 'depending on me for doing it,' 
I shouldn't have hesitated a minute, and it could have been done now 
when I anion the spot without the least trouble, had you so chosen. 
But if it was merely to ' please my own taste ' that I was to go into 
Edinburgh from Haddington and back again, or to give myself 'a 
lark,' I was right to decline. You have no notion what a disagree- 



] Terrot; the Donaldsons were Episcopal. « 

- A kind of ex-military haberdasher (I think)— shop near the entrance to her 
fatlier's house. 
3 Scotch preaching phrase. * Not ' de sang,' &c. (supy-a). 



94 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



able train that, is; both in going and coming you have to wait at 
Long Niddry from half an hour to an hour, in consequence of the 
irregularity of the London trains, which stop there. The express 
don't stop. Yesterday I had to wait an hour all but three minutes. 
You will be glad to hear as a symptom that an enterprising man is 
starting anew the old Haddington stage, to go twice a week at the 
game price as the railway, for the comfort of passengers who have 
not temper to stand this irregular waiting. 

My aunts received me back with the heartiest welcome; and I 
don't think it will be possible fur me to get back to Auchtertool 
this week without offending them. But I have changed my room 
for one to the back, left vacant by Ann, who is in Dumfriesshire, 
and it is as quiet as Cheyne Row, except for a very singular water- 
cistern that runs without a minute's interruption day and night. 

1 Men shall come, and men shall go, 
But thou go'st on for ever! ' 

It is only a gentle sound, however, like the flow of a brook; and it 
rather helped me to sleep last, night than otherwise. 

By the way, the trash of things that bit you so must have been 
the new insect called ' harvest bugs,' or ' gooseberry lice,' imported, 
they say, in some American plants about twenty years ago; they 
last for six weeks, and are most tormenting. Mrs. Donaldson was 
covered, as with chicken-pox, from them; and I finally was dread- 
full}' bitten, but got off easier as I resolutely refused to scratch the 
places; they took me chiefly on the legs, of all places. 

Yours faithfully. 

LETTER 169. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., The QUI. 

Craigenvilla: Saturday, August 23, 1856. 

Your letter of yesterday arriving at the same time with one from 
my aunt Ann (away in Dumfriesshire) to Grace, just as we wen- 
going to breakfast, threw us into such a little flutter of excitement 
that we all fell quite unconsciously into sin. I was reading my let- 
ter, and had taken a sip or two of tea and bitten into my soda-scone, 
and the others had done the same, when Grace suddenly shrieked 
out like 'a mad.' 1 'Mercy! we have forgotten the blessing!' I 
started on my chair, and (to such a pitch of compliance with ' coos- 
tom in part ' have I already reached) dropped instinctively the mor- 
sel out of my mouth into my hand, till I should sec what steps 
were to be taken for making our peace. But the case was judged 
past remedy, and the breakfast allowed to proceed unblessed. 

I was regretting to Betty that my aunts should live in such a fuss 
of religion. 'My dear!' said she, ' they were idle — plenty to live 
on, and nocht to do for't; they might hae ta'en to waur; so we maun 
just thole them, an no compleeu.'-' For the rest, they are more 
affectionate to myself than I ever found them before — really kind, 
almost to tenderness, especially Elizabeth, who seems much soft- 
ened by her sad accident. I am glad I stayed, for henceforth I 
shall feel to have auuts, which is a gain to one who has no brothers 
or sisters, and whose ' many friends' are something like the hare's. 
At the same time I shall be well pleased to return to Auchtertool on 
Monday, where also they are adorably kind to me, and where I 
have more room to turn in, in all ways. 

I have no friends in the north except. Mr. Gillespie of Ardachy, 
who I dare say would give me a welcome. But it would be a deal 
too far to travel for any satisfaction 1 should get out of him, even 
were there no unknown wife in the case. I "should prefer being 
' well let alone' in Fife, till the time of our return to Chelsea, with 
just a week or so taken for Dumfriesshire. There they won't weary 
of me either, which is a main ingredient in my contentment. If I 
want to ' vaary the schane ' 3 a little, I may go a few days to Miss 
Fergus, who has returned to Kirkcaldy, and sent me a kindly ex- 
pressed invitation for 'along visit.' She docs not mention your 
name, as indeed was natural — considering. Thomas Erskine also 
invites us both to Liulathen, and understands you to have written 
that, you would come. 

I went to call at poor Captain Paterson's (the house is close by 
here), and saw the Patersons 4 and Mrs. Stirling, who went home 
yesterday, and 'would write to me.' I should not much dislike 
going with you to Liulathen, if you take it on the way to the High 
lands; but I would rather stay quietly with my own people. — — 

, too, has sent me au affectionate letter about coming to 

Castle; but, though in an affectionate mood when she asked me to 
come, her mood might change by the time I went. And, on the 

whole, I am not drawn towards Castle, but ' quite the contrary.' 

'The honour of the thing' looks too mean, and scraggy, and icy a 
motive, to make me go a foot length, or trouble myself' the least' in 
the world, with all those tears ami kisses I brought away from Had- 
dington, still moist and warm on my heart, tears and kisses be- 
stowed on me for the sake of my dead father and mother. 

I have just been interrupted by a touching visit from Mrs. And- 

1 ' A mad,' Mazzini's. 

'-' • The; might have taken to warn-.' wise Bel I v ' This was never forgotten 

3 ' Vaary the schane,' imitation of grandfather Walter- supra Reminiscences, 
vol. ii. 

1 'Captain Paterson.' Erskine's brother inlaw. Mrs. Stirling is Erskine's 
widow sister and ladv house-manager. 



erson (Miss Grove), 1 who has been invalided with her spine for ten 
years. She was carried in by her husband, and laid on the sofa; 
a sad, grey, resigned-looking, suffering woman. But the husband 
so gentle and attentive to her, that there was a certain comfort in 
looking at them. I have an engagement- to Betty, who will have 
curds and cream waiting for me, and i must go now. 1 am to dine 
out to-day, for the first time, with Miss Hamilton (of Gladsmuir), 
who asked Grace, too. 

I always forgot to tell you that I met at the Liddells, in Fife, Mr. 
William Swan, and that I made him a pretty little speech about 
' your enduring remembrance of his father's and mother's kindness 
to you,' on which account I begged to shake hands with him, 
which had the greatest success. He was so pleased that Walter fol- 
lowed up my advances by inviting him to a dinner-party at the 
Manse, and there I presented him with your photograph, which he 
called ' a treasure.' So fat a man one rarely sees, but he looks kind, 
and has the character of being 'most benevolent,' and he evidently 
had a deep affection for his parents. 

Also I have a strange story to tell you about Samuel Brown's* 
illness; but that must lie over, or I shall miss the omnibus. 

Good luck to the new clothes. 

Yours ever faithfully, 

Jane W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 170. 

'Infants weeping in the porch.' 

' Vagitus et ingens, 
Infantumque anima; flentes in limine prime' 

Inclosures in this letter from poor Nero and servant Anne. 
This Anne, who had continued ami did still for several years, was 
an elderly cockney specimen (mother still in Holborn), punctual, 
rational, useful, though a little selfish and discontented. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., The Gill. 

Auchtertool, Bedroom: Friday, August 29. 1856. 

There! I have put my foot in it! I was well to a wonder; hadn't 
had one hour of my sickness, nor one wholly sleepless night since 
I left Chelsea; and the idea must needs take me. that Sunday I was 
in Edinburgh, to have out my humour to hear Dr. Guthrie. And 
so for two hours I was slowly simmered, as in one of Soyer's 
patent stewpans (the crush to hear him being quite as great in 
Edinburgh as in London). And then I had to walk to Morning- 
side in a cutting east wind; and then, at the far end, a miserable 
refection of weak tea and tough toast by way of dinner, when I 
needed to have stimulants 'thrown into the system' (my aunts all 
ways dining on tea on Sundays, that the servant may attend both 
morning and afternoon 'services'). The consequence of all this 
bad management was a cold on my nerves, which the crossing 8 
next day, and the blowy drive in the dog-cart, brought to a height. 
And I have been two whole days in bed ' suffering martyrs ' (as 
poor Paulet used to say); and am still very poorly, though to-day I 
can sit up and write, as you see. Indeed, last night I never once 
closed my eyes. Nothing could be more ill-timed than this illness, 
two dinner-parties having gone off here in the meantime to my 
honour and glory; and 'gone off without effect,' so far as I was 
concerned. Mr. Peter Swan (the other brother) was at the yester- 
day dinner; Walter thinking, after my speech to the younger Swan, 
that he could not be too hospitable to that family. Poor Walter! 
his poor little stipend must be dreadfully perplexed to meet all the 
demands his munificent spirit makes on it. 

Besides these dinner-parties, we have a house choke full. Jean- 
nie and her husband come over to see me chiefly; and Sophy from 
Liverpool, with ' Jackie,' a remarkably stirring little gentleman of % 
three and a half years; and another human mite, that rejoices as 
yet in the name of 'Baby.' And in the dead watches of the night 
there will arise a sound of ' infants weeping in the porch;' and on 
tlii- whole it is not now like Paradise here, as it was in my first two 
weeks. I should have stayed still here while the coast was clear, 
and only been going on my Haddington visit now. But, above 
till, I should not have gone and got myself all stewed into mush, 
hearing a popular preacher: though out of all sight the very most 
eloquent preacher I ever head, or wish to hear. Never was there 
such exquisite artistic simplicity! never such gushing affluence of 
imagery! It reminded me of those god-daughters of good fairies 
in my nursery tales, who every time they opened their blessed 
mouths 'pearls and rubies rolled out.' But, alas! they were the 
pearls and rubies of a dream! One brought away none of them in 
pocket to buy a meal of meat with, if one happened to need 

one. 4 

So long as it is in my head, please send me three or four auto- 
graphs for my aunt Ann, to give to some friend of hers, who has 
applied to her to beg them of you for some philanthropic purpose 
or other. I have had a knot in my pocket handkerchief to remind 
me of this for some time. 

As to Samuel Brown — 'the history of Samuel Brown 5 is this:' 

1 ' Miss Grove.' once a young Haddington friend and loved protegee, being 
English, and a stranger ' 

- ' Samuel Brown,' doctor of great promise once; poor young man killed in 
Edinburgh by too much kindness! ifar worse than none, if blind both.) 

3 'if the Frith. 

* Never looked at eloquent Guthrie again. 6 See note, supra. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



95 



For seven years he has, as you know, been afflicted with some de- 
rangement of the bowels, which was always expected to terminate 
fatally in iliac passion. Some weeks ago he seemed beyond recov- 
ery, and, indeed, they were watching him for death. At last his 
bowels being moved by some very strong medicine, there was 
passed a little boue; a bone of some sort of game — grouse they 
think — about half an inch long only, and this having fixed its sharp 
end into the bowel had caused (the doctors are positive) his whole 
illness. He has no recollection of ever swallowing the bone.. As 
it left an open hole in the bowel, and he was already so weak, they 
did not think he would be able to struggle through the cure, but it 
is now a good many weeks and he is still alive (I believe), and if he 
escapes the danger of having the bowel closed up in the course of 
healing the hole in it, he will be restored to perfect health, the doc- 
tors think. 1 All this, which I was told by Susan Hunter in Edinburgh, 
was corroborated for me by the poor man's sister at Haddington. 
Isn't it a strange story? such a poor, little, little cause producing so 
much torment and misery. 

I have written till the prespiration is running down my face — 
not wisely but too well. 

Yours faithfully, 

Jane W. C. 

LETTER 171. 
T. Carlyle, Kinloch Luichart, Dingwall. 

Scotsbrig: Thursday, Sept. 18, 1856. 

Well, I am safe here, though not without a struggle for it. 

Your letter this morning is a degree more legible than the first 
one! But, dear me! what galloping and spluttering over the paper; 
as if you were writing in a house on fire, and bent on making a lit- 
tle look as much as possible! I have measured the distance be- 
tween your lines in the letter just come, and it is precisely one 
inch. In the first letter, it must have been an inch and half! I 
call that a foolish waste of writing paper! If you have an excel- 
lent bedroom, could you not retire into it for, say, one hour, in the 
course of a whole week, and write composedly and leisurely? 
Why write in the midst of four people? 

For the rest, in spite of all objections, 'for the occasion got up,' 
I daresay you are pretty comfortable. Why not? When you go 
to any house, one knows it is because you choose to go ; and when 
you stay, it is because you choose to stay. You don't, as weakly 
amiable people do, sacrifice yourself for the pleasure of ' others. 
So pray do not think it necessary to be wishing yourself at home, 
and ' all that sort of thing.' on paper. ' I don't believe thee! '- If 
I were inclined to, I should only have to call to mind the beautiful 
letters you wrote to me during your former visit to the Ashburtons 
in the Highlands, and which you afterwards disavowed and tram- 
pled into the fire! ! 

As to Tom Gillespie, if you could have got into his hands, I am 
sure he would have been useful to you, and been delighted to be 
so. But the poor man is quite laid up, has been for long in a dan- 
gerous state. His sister, Mrs. Binnie, lives near the Caledonian 
Railway; and I spent the hours I had to wait for the train on Tues- 
day at her house, and she was speaking quite despoudingly about 
him. So that it is no go! 

Five pounds is as easily sent as two one-pounds notes; more 
easily indeed, for I have no one-pound notes. So I send a five- 
pound note to put you out of all danger of running short. It is a 
very unnecessary grievance that to incur! so long as one has money. 

I write to Mrs. Russell to-day that I shall be at Thornhill on 
Monday, D.V. Isabella says I had best go from here to Annan; it 
will make the gig-journey shorter. I haven't the least objection to 
the gig-journey, 'quite the contrary.' But I daresay Jamie's time 
is very precious just now, so I accepted that route at once. 
Whether I return to Scotsbrig or not will depend on your arrange- 
ments. 

Lady Ashburton is very kind to offer to take me back. Pray 
make her my thanks for the offer. But though a very little her- 
ring, I have a bom liking to 'hang by my own head.' And when 
it is a question simply of paying my own way, or having it paid 
for me, I prefer ' lashing down ' 3 my four or five sovereigns on the 
table all at once! If there were any companionship in the matter 
it would be different; and if you go back with the Ashburtons it 
would be different, as then I should be going merely as part of 
your luggage, without self-responsibility. Settle it as you like, it 
will be all one to me; meeting you at Scotsbrig, or in Edinburgh, 
or going home by myself from Thornhill. 

This is September 19th, the day of my father's death. 

Jamie is going to take me a little drive at one o'clock, lie is 
such a dear good Jamie for me always! 

Walter wrote me a long letter, to meet me at Scotsbrig, which I 
received in bed yesterday, and it gave me ' a good comforting cry; ' 
it is so kind — oh, so kind and brotherly ! 

Yours faithfully. 

Jane W. C. 

1 He died, poor fellow. * ' I don't believe thee,' my father's phrase. 

3 ' Lashing down my four or five sovereigns.' 'They ton Id me lie was 'listed. 
I sought high and low; at last I found him in an upstairs room at breakfast 
amoug them, with an ounce of tay and a quarter of sugar, all lashed down • in 



LETTER 172. 

T. Carhjle, Kinloch Luichart, Dingwall. 

Scotsbrig: Monday, Sept. 22, 1856. 

Oh, dear! oh, dear! To be thrown into a quandary like this, 
just when I am getting ready to start for Thornhill! You are so 
wrong iu your dates that I don't know what to make of it. ' 22nd ' 
you have written at the top of your note, and it arrives here on the 
22nd! 

It may be all right, but also it may very probably be all wrong, 
and the five-pound note I sent you from Ecclefechan on Thursday, 
the 18th, and the long letter that accompanied it, gone to nobody 
knows where! Pleasant! Why can't you take money enough with 
you? If I had not been told to inclose notes I would have sent a 
post-office order on Dingwall. 

Till I hear for certain that the letter and money are lost, I don't 
know what to write! There is no pleasure in telling you the same 
things over again. 

I took the letter to Ecclefechan in the gig, and Jamie posted it 
while I bought envelopes. There was no visibility of the note in 
it even when held between you and the light. 

Please to write immediately on receiving this, to Mrs. Russell's, 
Thornhill, Dumfriesshire, to say you have got the money. 

Jamie is going to drive me to Annan,- and it is a day of heavy 
showers. But I am to be met at Thornhill station, and must go. 

Yours faithfully, 

Jane Welsh Carlyle. 

LETTER 173. 

Alas! my poor, much suffering, ever toiling, and endeavouring 
woman. No doubt I was very bad company, sunk overhead in the 
Frederick mud element. 

Anne did not go at this time; but a sad. sick winter was await- 
ing my dear one: confined to the house for five months and utterly 
weak, says a note of the time ! Her patience iu such cases always 
was unsurpassable — patience, silent goodness, anxiety only for one 
unworthy. — T. C. 

Mrs. Russell, Thornhill. 

5Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Friday, Oct. 10. 1856. 
Oh, my dear! my dear! my dear! — To keep myself fronu going 
stark mad I must give myself something pleasant to do for this one 
hour! And nothing so pleasant suggests itself as just writing to 
you, to tell you how miserable and aggravated I am! Geraldine 
says, ' Why on earth, when I was beside a doctor I had confidence 
in, didn't I consult him about my health?' Why? Because when 
I was beside Dr. Russell, and indeed (except for a common cold) 
all the time I was in Scotland, nothing ailed my health! A London 
doctor's prescription for me long ago (the only sensible man I ever 
knew in the profession here — a pity he is dead), that I 'should be 
kept always happy and tranquil' (!!!), had finally got itself carried 
into effect for ten whole weeks, and was found an efficacy ! But 
from the day I left Scotland quite other things than happiness and 
tranquillity have been 'thrown into my system'! I arrived here 
with a furious faceache, Mr. C. having insisted on my sitting in a 
violent draught all the journey; that kept me perfectly sleepless all 
night, iu spite of my extreme fatigue, and so I began to be ill at 
once, and have gone on crescendo in the same ratio that my worries 
have increased. Figure this: [Scene — a room where everything is 
enveloped in dark yellow London fog! For air to breathe, a sort 
of liquid soot! Breakfast on the table — ' adulterated coffee.' ' adul- 
terated bread,' 'adulterated cream,' and 'adulterated water'!] Mr. 
0. at one end of the table, looking remarkably bilious; Mrs. C. at 
the other, looking half dead! Mr. C. : 'My dear, I have to inform 
you that my bed is full of bugs, or fleas, or some sort of animals 
that crawl over me all night!' Now, I must tell you, Mr. C. had 
written to me, at Auchtertool, to 'write emphatically to Anne 
about keeping all the windows open; for, with her horror of fresh 
air, she was quite capable of having the house full of bugs when 
we returned; ' and so I imputed this announcement to one of these 
fixed ideas men, and especially husbands, are apt to take up, just 
out of sheer love of worrying! Living in a universe of bugs out- 
side, I had entirely ceased to fear them in my own house, having 
kept it so many years perfectly clean from all such abominations. 
So I answered 'with merely a sarcastic shrug, that was no doubt 
very ill-timed under the circumstances, and which drew on me no 
end of what the Germans call Kraftspruche ! But clearly the 
practical thing to be done was to go and examine his bed— and I 
am practical, moi! So, instead of getting into a controversy that 
had no basis, I proceeded to toss over his blankets and pillows, 
with a certain sense of injury! But, on a sudden, I paused in 
my operations; I stooped to look at something the size of a 
pin-point; a cold shudder ran over me; as sure as I lived it was 
an infant bug! And, oh, heaven, that, bug, little as it was, must 
have parents — grandfathers and grandmothers, perhaps! I 
went on looking then with frenzied minuteness, and saw enough 

the table at one time! Says I, "Pat. you're going on at a great rate here, 
but." &c. &c.' Speech of ah Irish peasant's father on his lost son, to Edward 
Irving long ago. , 



96 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



to make me put on my bonnet and rush out wildly, in the black 
rain, to hunt up a certain trustworthy carpenter to come and 
take down the bed. The next three "days I seemed to be in 
the thick of a domestic Balaklava, which is now even only sub- 
siding — not subsided. Anne, though I have reproached her with 
carelessness (decidedly there was not the vestige of a bug in the 
whole house when we went away), is so indignant that the house 
should be turned up after she had ' settled it,' and that ' such a fuss 
should be made about, bugs, which are inevitable in London,' that 
she flared up on me, while I was doing her work, and declared ' it 
was to be hoped I would get a person to keep my house cleaner 
than she had done; as she meant to leave that day month! ' To 
which I answered, ' Very good,' and nothing more. And now you 
see, instead of coming back to anything like a home, I have come 
back to a house full of bugs and evil passions! I shall have to be 
training a new servant into the ways of the house (when I have got 
her) at a season of the year when it will be the most uphill work tor 
both her and me. As to this woman, I kept her these three years 
because she was a clever servant, and carried on the house without 
any bother to me; but I never liked her as a woman; from the first 
week I perceived her to be what she has since on all occasions 
proved herself, cunning, untrue, and intensely selfish. The atmos- 
phere of such a character was not good, and nothing but moral 
cowardice could have made me go ou with her. But I did so dread 
always the bothers and risks of ' a change ' ! Now, however, that 
it is forced on me, I console myself by thinking, with that 'hope 
which spring's eternal in the human mind,' that I may find a ser- 
vant, after all, whom it may be possible to, not only train into my 
ways, but attach to me! What a foul I am! Oh, I should so like 
a Scotchwoman, if I could get any feasible Scotchwoman. These 
Londoners are all of the cut of this woman. I have written to 
Haddington, where the servauts used to be very good, to know if 
they can do anything for me. I suppose it is needless asking you; 
of course, if there had been any 'treasure' procurable you would 
have engaged her yourself. But do you really know nobody I 
could get from Nithsdale? How stupid it was of Margaret not to 
come when I wanted her. I am sure it is harder work she must 
have at the Castle. Oh, my darling. I wish you were here to give 
me a kiss, and cheer me up a bit with your soft voice! In cases 
of this sort, Geraldine with the best intentions is no help. She is 
impractical, like all women of genius! She was so pleased with 
your letter! ' My dear.' she said to me, 'how is it that women 
who don't write books write always so much nicer letters than 
those who do?' I told her it was, I supposed, because thay did 
not write in the 'Valley of the shadow' of their future biogra- 
pher, but wrote what they had to say frankly aud naturally. 

Your father (a kiss to him) should write me a word about ' Provi- 
dence.' Oh, be pleased all of you, Dr. Russell too, for all so busy 
as he is, to think of me. and 'love me! I have great faith in the 
magnetic influence of kind thoughts. And, upon my honour, I 
need to be soothed — magnetically, and in any possibleway! 

Your affectionate 

Jane W. Carltle. 

LETTER 174. 
To Mrs. Austin, The Gill, Annan. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Jan 2, 1857. 

My dear Mary, — The box came yesterday, all safe — not so much 
as one egg cracked, and just in lime to have one of the fowls 
boiled for .Mr. C.'s dinner. Mr. C. dines all by himself at present, 
I merely looking on, as he doesn't participate in my dislike to eat- 
ing in presence of one's fellow-creatures not similarly occupied. 

Since my illness, that is to say, pretty nearly ever since I re- 
turned from Scotland, I have used my privilege of invalid (and no 
doubt about it) to dine at the hour when nature and reason prompt 
me to dine, viz. two o'clock, instead of at Mr. C.'s fashionable hour 
of six. So my go at the fowl comes off to-day. They look fa- 
mous ones; and as for the goose — heaven and earth! what a goose! 
Even Anne, who is so difficult to warm up to bare satisfaction 
point with anything of an eatable sort, stood amazed before that 
goose, ' as hi presence of the infinite! ' and, when she had found her 
tongue, broke forthwith, 'Lord! ain't it fat, ma'm?' Thank you 
very much, dear Mary. Your box reminds me of the time when 
you came to me at some dreadful inn at Annan, where I happened 
to be, I don't remember why. and was doing I don't remember 
what., except that I was horridly sick and uncomfortable, and you 
came tripping in with a reticule-basket, and gave me little cakes and 
sweeties out of it: and that comforted my mind, if not exactly good 
for my stomach. Dear Mary, how kind you used to be in those old 
times, when we were thrown so much on one another's company! 
That is the only feature of my existence at Craig-o'-putta that I 
recall with pleasure; the rest of it was most, dreary aud uncon- 
genial. 

The meal is welcome, for I brought but little from Scotsbrig. not 
thinking to need more. When I dine in the middle of the day. 
however, I can take my old supper of porridge, provided I feel up 
to the bother of making it myself. So I have my porridge, while 
Mr. ( '. takes bis more unsubstantial breadberry — so I call it — Anne 
calls it 'Master's pap"! 

We have beautiful weather again, and 1 get out for a drive in an 



omnibus. The Scotsbrig gig would be nicer, but anything is better 
than walking, when one feels like an eel in the matter of backbone. 
I go in an omnibus from the bottom of our street to the end of its 
line, and just come back again; thus realising some fourteen miles 
of shaking at the modest cost of one shilling. Mr. C.'s horse gives 
him the highest satisfaction; he says it is a quite remarkable com- 
bination of courage and sensibility'. The Secretary, too, would do 
well enough if he could only give over 'sniffing through his nose.' 
The canaries are the happiest creatures in the house ; the dog next. 
Kind regards to your husband and Margaret. 

Affectionately yours, 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 175. 

Monday, May 4. 1857. — At Paris, on her way home from Nice, 
Lady Ashburtou (born Lady Harriet Montague) suddenly died: 
suddenly to the doctors and those who believed them; in which 
number, fondly hoping against hope, was I. A sad and greatly in- 
teresting event to me and to many! The most queen-like woman 
I had ever known or seen. The honour of her constant regard had 
for ten years back been among my proudest and most valued pos- 
sessions — lost now; gone — for ever gone! This was our first visit 
to Addiscombe after. I rode much about with Lord A. in intimate 
talk, and well recollect this visit of perhaps a week or ten days, 
and of the weeks that preceded and followed. How well I still 
remember the evening Richard Milnes brought down the news; 
the moonlit streets, and dirge-like tone of everything, as I walked 
up to Lady Sandwich's door and asked for the weak, devoted, aged 
mother. In no society, English or other, had I seen the equal or 
the second of this great lady that was gone; by nature and by cul- 
ture facile princeps she, I think, of all great ladies I have ever seen. 

My Jane's miserable illness now over, a visit to Haddington was 
steadily in view all summer. July 7. — Craik from Belfast, with his 
daughters, was here holidaying; had decided on flying to Edin- 
burgh by some unrivalled and cheap excursion train, and persuaded 
her to go with them. I accompanied to Euston Square; had dis- 
mal omens of the 'unrivalled,' which were fully realised through 
the night.— T. C 

T Carlyle, Chelsea. 

Sunny Bank, Haddington: Wednesday, July 8, 1857. 

Oh, mercy! Lord be thanked! ' Good times, and bad times, and 
all times pass over.' Last night is passed over, like an excessively 
bad dream; aud I am sitting here in cleanness and quiet, announc- 
ing my safety so far. But it is a wonder that somebody else has not 
rather to announce my death by 'bad air.' Oh, my dear! you saw 
all those people in one box, sixteen of them! Well, imagine that 
they closed every window aud slit, except the fourth window, com- 
manded by Georgiua ' and me. Not one breath of air to be had all 
night, except in holding one's head out of the window. Craik and 
his offsprings ■ were very attentive and kind, and I ate my cold fowl 
wing, and drank a little brandy and water; and the large Scotch- 
man offered me ' his shoulder to rest on, if it would be of any ser- 
vice;' but what availed all that against 'a polluted atmosphere '? 
How it happened that everybody got through the night alive I can't 
explain; nay, everybody but Craik, one of his girls, and myself, 
slept the sleep of the just! By the way, you may tell Mr. Larkin 
' snoring ' is not audible in a railway train. My chief torment pro- 
ceeded from the tendency to sleep produced by the atmosphere get- 
ting itself overcome by the upright position, with no rest for the 
head. It ' was cheap,'' but I did not 'like it,' 3 and have seldom 
been thaukfuller than when I found myself the only living creature 
visible at the Duubar station, after the Craiks had streamed away. 
I washed my face with Eau-de-Cologne, and combed my dishev- 
elled hair in a little, cold, tidy waiting-room; and in about an hour 
my train came and picked me up, and set me down at Haddington 
station soon after nine, where the carriage was duly waiting. 

I never saw the country about here look so lovely, but I viewed it 
all with a calm about as morbid as was my excitement last year. Dear 
Miss Jess received me with open arms in a room with a bright fire, 
and the prettiest breakfast-table set out. Miss Donaldson does not 
come down till eleven. They are the same heavenly kind creatures, 
and there is no falling off even in looks since last year. I am not 
going out of the house again to-day, but. I cannot write, I am so 
wearied! oh, so dreadfully wearied! ' Being hindered from sleeping 
is quite another thing from not being able lo sleep. 

I hope you found a fire when you got home, and some reasonable 
good tea. If you could fancy me in'some part of the house out of 
sight, my absence would make little difference, considering how 
little I see of you, and how preoccupied you are when I do see you. 

Do you know I had yester-even a presentiment I should die be- 
fore I 'got back? Those things Lord Ashburton brought had shiv- 
ered me all through, ami the first thing we met was a coffin. I was 
so nervous that I wanted to scream, but the physical weariness had 
quashed down that nonsense. 

Oh! be kind to Nero, and slightly attentive to the canaries, and 
my poor little nettle and gooseberry bush. Moreover, tell Anne she 



• Craik. 

3 Famous Dr. Reid on whisky punch. 



5 Both (supra). 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



97 



will find Mrs. Cook's bill in my blot-book; I forgot to give it to her. 
I also forgot to bring my boa; tell Anne, please, to shake it every 
two or three days, and to leave the fur jacket exposed to the air 
where I placed it, and shake it and the great fur coat downstairs 
frequently. She let the moths get into my fur last year. A kiss to 
Nero. 

I wonder how you are getting along. 

God keep you. 

Affectionately yours, 

Jane W. Carlyle. 

I wish you would thank Lord Ashburton for me. I couldn't say 
anything about his kindness in giving me those things, which she 
had been in the habit of wearing. I felt so sick and so like to cry, 
that I am afraid I seemed quite stupid and ungrateful to him. 

LETTER 176. 
• T. Caiiyk,, Chelsea. 

Haddington : July 14, 1857. 

Good morning, dear! I wonder if you are ' quite happy and com- 
fortable ' this morning? or — what shall I say — 'contrairy'? Per 
haps I may have a letter by the midday post; your last came by it. 
But it is best, in my own writing, to take time ' by the forelock; ' 
his pigtail is so apt to come away in one's hand! Indeed, I have 
less time for letter-writing here than might be thought, considering 
the quiet monotony of the life I lead. I am ' called ' at eight by 
their clock; but in reality at half-past seven; and at a quarter after 
eight (in reality) Miss Jess and 1 sit down to breakfast; tea, eggs, 
brown bread, and honey-comb. This is Miss Jess's best talking 
time, and we sit till ten or so. From that till eleven I may write, 
or darn my stockings, or meditate on things in general, without be- 
ing missed. 

At. eleven the carriage comes round, and both ladies go a drive of 
two miles along the Dunbar Road! I accompany them; and, hav- 
ing set them down at their own door again, I go a long drive by my- 
self. That is my chief entertainment during the day. Nowhere in 
the world that I know of are there such beautiful drives; and I 
recognise places that I had seen in my dreams, the recollection of 
them having been preserved in my sleep long after it had passed 
out of my waking mind. 

I come in just in time to change my dress and rest before dinner 
at three; a dinner always ' very good to eat' (as you say) and of 
patriarchal simplicity Always strawberries and cream ad libitum! 
Between dinner and tea (at six) I talk to Miss Donaldson, and I 
take a little walk, to the churchyard or some place that I care for. 
After tea talking again, or I read aloud — excessively loud (I read 
them your Nigger Question, much to Miss Donaldson's approval 
and delight); and before supper (of arrowroot milk), at half- past 
nine, I have run down every evening to speak a few w T ords of en- 
couragement to my poor unlawful cousin, in her sick bed. I think 
she would recover if she could overcome the effects of the frightful 
quantity of mercury Mr. Howden has given her. My heavens, what 
my father would have said to him! At ten, bed ! ! 

I am so grieved to find the fair, which used to be held to-day, has 
turned into a mere cattle-fair; no booths with toys and sweeties! ' 
and I had set my heart on buying a pair of waxen babes of the 
wood covered with moss (by imaginary robins), in a little oval spale- 
box, 2 which used to be my favorite fairing. Last night, however, I 
bought a — hedgehog from a wee boy. I thought I might take it 
home in my carpet-bag to eat the cockroaches. Perhaps I will think 
better of it! 

I imagine Miss Jess was so inspirited by my presence, that last 
Sunday she 'took a notion' of going to church! She had not 
been there for years. Of course I had to go with her. As it was 
to ' the chapel ' I didn't so much mind. I should not have liked to 
sit in a strange seat in our own church. I found the poor little 
whitewashed, bare-boarded chapel transformed into a little blossom 
of Puseyite taste! Painted glass windows! Magnificent organ! 
Airs from the opera of ' Acis and Galatea'! the most snow-white 
and ethereal of surplices! and David Roughead (he of the 'fertile 
imagination ') chanting his responses behind us, and singing ' a deep 
bass,' and tossing off his A — mens! in a jaunty style, that gave me a 
strong desire to box his ears. 

Give my compliments to Anne; the usual kiss to my 'blessed' 
dog. 

Your affectionate 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 177. 
T. Carlylfi, Chelsea. 

Sunny Bank : Thursday, July 23, 1857. 
The pens you made me, dear, are all ground down on this lime- 
paper, and I am obliged to write now with the backs, which has a 
perverse effect on my ideas, and my ideas are rather awry to begin 
with. I feel provoked that, having ' made an effort ' like this to 
get well, I do not succeed in doing it effectually and at once. ' Very 



1 Anglican comfits. 



3 ' Spale ' is joiner's shaving, spill. 



absurd.' I ought to be thankful for ever so little amendment ; above 
all, even if no cure should be worked on me by all this fresh air, 
and sweet milk, and riding in carriages, and having my own entire 
humour out, I ought to be thankful for the present escape from 
that horrid sickness, which nobody that has not felt it cau know 
the horror of. 

Though my nights are no better than they were at Chelsea — in- 
deed, worse latterly — still it is only oppression and weariness 1 feel 
during the day ; not that horrid feeling as if death were grasping at 
my heart. But, ' oh, my! ' what a shame, when you are left alone 
there with plenty of smoke of your own to consume, to be puffing 
out mine on you from this distance! It is certainly a questionable 
privilege one's best friend enjoys, that of having all one's darkness 
rayed out on him. If I were writing to — wdio shall I say? — Mr. 
Barlow, now, I should fill my paper with 'wits,' and elegant 
quotations, and diverting anecdotes; should write a letter that 
would procure me laudation sky-high, on my ' charming, unflag- 
ging spirits.' and my ' extraordinary freshness of mind and feelings; ' 
but to you I cannot for my life be anything but a bore. 

I went and drank tea with Mrs. David Davidson, the worst-used 
woman I ever knew; and at seventy-eight years of age she hasn't a 
drop of gall in her whole composition, and is as serene as if she had 
never had a sorrow. She has still the same servant, Mary Jeffrys, 
who was with her wheu I was a child; she has served her with the 
same relish for fifty years. ' Ye diuna find us as perfect as I could 
wuss,' she (Mary) said to me (the house was clean as a new pin); 
' but I'm as wullin as ever to work, only no just sae able.' At the 
door she called after me; ' Ye'll find us ay here while we're to the 
fore; but it's no unco lang we can expect to get bided.' I don't 
think either mistress or maid could survive the other a mouth. 

To-night, again, I go out to tea, at Miss Brown's; and on Satur- 
day night at the Sheriffs', who were at school with me. On Mon- 
day I go to Mrs. Binnie's; on Tuesday to Craigenvilla, Morning- 
side; and on Wednesday to Auchtertool. 

I have a most affectionate letter from Lady Airlie, but I hardly 
think I shall go so far. 

Compliments to Anne. Your care of the live stock does ' credit 
to your head and hort.' ' 

Affectionately yours, 

Jane Welsh Carlyle. 



LETTER 178. 
T. Carlyle, Chelsea. 

Sunny Bank: Sunday, July 26, 1857. 

Thanks for your note, meant to be very soothing, I can see; but 
it rather soothes me the wrong way of the hair somehow — makes 
me feel I had been making a baby of myself, and a fractious baby. 
Well, never mind, as Miss Madeline Smith ' said to old Dr. Simp- 
son, who attended her during a short illness in prison, and begged 
to use ' the privilege of an old man, and speak to her seriously at 
parting,' ' My dear doctor, it is so good of you. But I won't let 
you trouble yourself to give me advice, for I assure you I have 
quite made up my mind to turn over a new leaf!' ■ That is fact. 
Simpson told it to Terrot, who told me. 

And so I have made up my mind to turn over a new leaf, and no 
more give words to the impatient or desponding thoughts that rise 
in my miud about rnyself. It is not a natural vice of mine, that 
sort of egoistical babblement, but has been fostered in me by the 
patience and sympathy shown me in my late long illness. I can 
very easily leave it off, as I did smoking, when I see it to be get- 
ting a bad' habit. 

But about Miss Smith I have one thing to tell you which I think 
you will be rather glad of, as giving the death-stroke to testimonials. 
The Glasgow merchants are actually raising a subscription (it has 
reached nine thousand pounds) ' to testify their sympathy for her.' 

One man, a Mr. D , has given a thousand himself — he had 

boiler marry her, and get poisoned. Not that I believe the girl 
guilty of the poisoning; but she is such a little incarnate devil that 
the murder don't go for much in my opinion of her. 

Haddington has half the honour of having produced this coca- 
trice. I knew her great-grandmother — a decent, ancient woman, 
called 'Mealy Janet,' never to be seen but with a bag of flour 
under each arm. She was mother to the ' Mr. Hamilton, architect 
of Edinburgh,' and to one of the most curious figures in my child- 
hood, Mysie Hamilton, or ' Meal Mysie ' (she continuing her mother's 
flour trade) ; she spoke with a loud man's voice, that used to make 
us children take to our heels in terror when we heard it. I remem- 
ber the boys said Mysie was a but what that was I hadn't a 

notion, nor have I yet; my mother thought her a good woman, and 
once by way of lark, invited her to tea. I bought a pamphlet the 
other day containing the whole 'trial,' on the very spot where 
Mysie Hamilton sold her flour, now a book-shop. 

I was in our own house yesterday. They have new papered the 
drawing-room and dining-room. But the paint we left on it is still the 
same, and perfectly new-looking, after some forty years. My father 

1 Poor Lady Bulwer, quizzing (her mother-in-law), in a mad mood, where 
also were ' Foz ' = Forster, &c. &c. 
a The Giasgow murderess. 



98 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



always had everything done effectually. There are no such doors as 
those painted vvainscoat ones that I ever saw, with their eight coats 
of paint and as many of varnish. The old drawing room still looks 
to me a beautiful room, independent of associations. But a full- 
length portrait of Mr. Howdeu. leaning like Sir David Baird on his 
horse's neck, was over the mantel-piece, vulgarising everything by 
its gloom-like presence. I gave young Dr. Howden, who lives 
there still, the large photograph of Woolner's Medallion,' in the 
secret expectation it would be hung up in that dear old room which 
still feels mine. 

And my youth was left behind 

For some one else to find. 2 

The young girl-wife who lives there is very lovely, and writes 
poetry — God help her! 

I adhere to my programme of leaving to-morrow, &c, but. have 
promised to stop here again on my way home. I could not help it, 
when I saw those dear old women crying about my going so soon. 

[No room for signature. Two flower-leaves — petals — inclosed.] 

LETTER 179. 

Archy something, an enthusiast Anuandale pedlar, gone half inad 
with theology and horror of mad dugs, was gratefully supping por- 
ridge and milk in a wealth}' farmer's kitchen one summer evening, 
intending to lodge there, when a mischievous maid servant whis- 
pered to another, '.Was that the bowl Hie stranger dog had? 'as 
audibly to Archy as the 'Whist, whist!' (hush) of answer was. 
Archy sprang to his feet, snatched his pack, and ran through the 
wilderness many miles incessantly towards the cottage of a brother 
■whom he had there. In the dead of the night a knock at the win- 
dow was heard: brother asking who? what? Archy answered 'I'm 
degenerating.' 

T. Garlyle, Chelsea. 

Auchtertool : Monday, Aug. 3, 1857. 

Oh, heaven! or rather, oh, the other place! 'I am degenerating 
from a woman into a dog, and feel an inclination to bark — bow 
wow! wow!' Ever since I came here I have been passing out of 
one silent rage into another at the tilings in general of this house. 
Viewed from the invalid point of view, they are enough really to 
make one not only bark but bite; were it not that, in other people's 
houses, one has to assume the muzzle of politeness. The best 
intentions always unfortunate. The finest possibilities yielding 
zero, or worse. The maximum of bother to arrive at the minimum 
of comfort (so far as I am concerned). Is it possible that the 
change of a cook can make the difference betwixt now and last 
summer? or is it the increased irritability of my nerves that makes 
it? or are my cousins getting stupefied for want of anything to stir 
their souls on this hilltop? The devil knows best how it comes, 
but 'I, as one solitary individual,' find no satisfaction in the ar- 
rangements here, though ' there need be no reflections for want of 
roses,' and, ' beautiful views,' aud ' pure air '! And it is not only 
my soul that protests but my body; I sleep shockingly, and the 
sickness has come back. How little Mary has escaped dying under 
these late aud irregular hours, and bad bread, and all the rest of the 
'much ado about nothing,' and 'don't you wish you may get it,' 
here, is a wonder to me, and I don't think much of her doctor. 
When I looked at him and his ways intently, the other day, with 
a half-thought to consult him myself about certain things, he ' left 
me cold,' 3 — very cold indeed, and. ' with a decided preference,' for 
nature! Hadn't I better be going then? Decidedly; ' being an only 
child,' I have 'no wish' to stay. But then, ' that damned thing 
called the milk of human kindness,' 4 not being yet. all gone to sour 
curd in me, I would not show any unfeeling impatience to be gone; 
where I am treated (though God knows how injudiciously) most 
kindly according to their light and ability. 

I have written to Lady Aiiiie declining the honour proposed to 
me, which looked, on consideration, something of the Irishman's 
bottomless Sedan sort. Also I have declined a pressing invitation 
to Thornhill. My flesh quivered at the thought of going through 
that again, in ray present weakness of body and mind. But I mean 
to stop some days — a week perhaps — with my aunts; who are really 
good, intelligent companions when they keep off their hobby, and 
where I am well cared for materially. They have a good, plain 
house, and keep early hours and to a moment, ami seemed really 
pleased to have me. I never saw women more improved by keep- 
ing! I had been thinking to try a week's sea-bathing before you 
suggested it; and perhaps shall go for a week to Portobello or 
North Berwick. At all events, I go back, if I am spared, to Sunny 
Bank to start from there for London. I could not get away with- 
out promising that, and shall be very glad of another breath of my 
'native air' — I shouldn't wonder if ii were the last till it blows over 
my grave; for when one of these dear old women dies, the other 
will follow fast; and they, too, gone, I don't think, if I even lived 
long, I should ever have the courage or wish to go back more. 

Yours affectionately, 

Ja>t3 W. Oart.yle. 

1 Of me. 2 Supra, my wrone recollection. • Mazzini. 

4 "That damned thing called the " Milk of human kindness." Sea-captain 
thanked God he had nothing of,' &c. Spedding's story. 



LETTER 180. 
T. Garlyle, Clielsea. 

Auchtertool: Monday, Aug. TO, 1857. 

Oh, my dear! — I am so sorry to think of your having been all 
alone there with Anne 'dreadfully ill!' As it lias turned out.it 
was better that you did not tell me; for certainly I should have at 
once flown off to the rescue, and arrived only to complicate your 
difficulties by falling 'dreadfully ill' myself. Still, the confidence 
in all being well (figuratively speaking), so long as I hear noth- 
ing to the contrary, is done for by this concealment. So it will be 
for my peace of mind to be making no further move than is not a 
move homeward. My consolation, under the images of your dis- 
comfort that present themselves, is of that melancholy sort pro- 
duced by ' two afflictions.' ' I have been in such a way myself for 
the last week, that I could have done no good to ycm, Anne, or 
myself by being 'at my post'! The physical pain has been over 
for three days, but followed by such horrible depression of spirits 
that it felt as if one degree more of it would make me hang or 
drown myself. I could not write to you anything but articulate 
moans aud groans, with a sprinkling of execrations! And so I pre- 
ferred letting down the valve and consuming my own smoke. The 
last two nights I have had better sleep; and to-day I feel a little 
more up to living, though still far enough from 'doing the hoping of 
the family.' 

Walter is going to give me a drive. Since Friday I have not 
had any exercise. .Teannie, with her ' child of miracle ' and its two 
attendants, is still expected to-morrow, and I have fixed my depar- 
ture for Thursday, which is as much givifig in to family proprieties 
as could reasonably be expected of me. I have not named any- 
time for my stay at Morningside — will ' leave it open ' (as you say); 
but, even should I thrive there, I don't think of more than a week. 
Aud another week at Sunny Bank will make as much ' outing' as 
should suffice for this year! For the rest, I may give myself the 
same comfort about my travels that I used to give you about your 
horse, when you were saying it did you ' next to no good; ' I 'can't 
tell how much worse' I should have been had I stayed through all 
that heat of London. Certainly I have had nothing to suffer from 
heat, whatever else. 

Oh. those Indian women! It seems sinful of one to complain of 
anything in face of their dreadful fate, and their mothers and sis- 
ters at home! '• It is difficult to reconcile such things with the be- 
lief that God takes care of every individual He has made! — that 
'God is Love! ' Love? It isn't much like a world ruled by Love, 
this. My dear, I am tempted to write a good deal of blasphemy 
just at this moment. ' Better not ! ' 

Thanks for writing so often. If you saw your letters received, 
you would think them important to me, surely; or that I am cer- 
tainly too weak and nervous ' for anything ' (as they say in Lanca- 
shire). The last two or three letters 1 turned quite sick at the sight 
of, and had to catch at a chair and sit down trembling before I could 
open and read them. This is ' a plain unvarnished ' fact. And yet 
I was frightened for nothing in particular that I could have put into 
words. If you had put a loaded pistol to me, and required me to 
tell on my life what was agitating me to such a degree, I could 
have said nothing more lucid than that I didn't know whether there 
mightn't be some word in the letter that I would rather hadn't been 
there, or that the tone of the letter might show you were ill or un- 
comfortable, or that, in short, I couldn't guess whether it would 
make me gladder or sadder. But for a rational creature to be at the 
point of fainting with no more reason than that! ' A poor, misera- 
ble wretch with no stamina! ' (as old Sterling used to say). 

Address to Craigenvilla, Morningside. 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane W. C. 

LETTER 181. 

' Child of Glory,' absurd phrase in somebody's translation from 
poor Zacharias Werner, much commented upon at Comely Bank (I 
being thought concerned) by a certain Madame Viaris, zealous and 
honest. Pomeranian, wife of an ex-Napoleon officer, whom and their 
one boy she honourably supported by teaching German. Reciting 
or reading in a high shrieky tone the original of Werner, she ex- 
claimed passionately, at every turn, 'But where is the Child of 
Glory?' and got no answer, except in assenting smiles and long- 
continued remembrance.— T. 0. 

T. Carli/k, Chelaa. 

Auchtertool: Thursday, Aug. 13. 1857. 
My packing is just finished, dear; my dinner will be up in five 
minutes: and then I am oil to Kirkcaldy to catch the three o'clock 
train. The day is very calm, so I hope to escape sickness; anyhow 
I shall be glad to have saved myself from 'The Child of Glory,' 
and its court. Aud as one hopes for relief, when one is feverish in 
bed, from turning on the other side, so I look forward to Morning- 
side with a certain thankfulness. At all events it is near Sunny 
Bank, and Sunny Bank is on the road to London. 



1 ' Two afflictions.'—' Deux afflictions mises ensemble peuvent devenir une 
donsolation.' 
3 Indian Mutiny, and such news of its horrors! 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



99 



Jeannie and her suite did not arrive till yesterday. The baby is 
about three finger-lengths long; the two nurses nearly six feet each. 
Five packing cases came before them by the carrier, and as many 
portmanteaus and carpet-bags in the carriage with them. ' Did you 
ever? ' ' No, I never! ' I have kept my temper with all this non- 
sense wonderfnlly, to outward appearance at least. But it is only 
the speedy prospect of getting far away from it that has enabled me 
to keep from bursting out into swearing. 

I hoped to have had leisure to write at decent length yesterday 
afternoon or to-day; but one can't get on with anything in this 
infernal hubbub. So I just scribble this little note to put in the 
post-office on my way out to Morningside, that you may know I 
have 'crossed' without accident. The Morningside post leaves 
early I believe. 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane W. Caklyle. 

LETTER 182. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

Craigen villa: Saturdaj', Aug. 15, 1857. 

Now then, ' thanks God,' I am back into the regions of common 
sense; have a nice little ' my-foot-is-on-my-native-heath-and-my- 
name's-Macgregor ' feeling. The lungs of my soul begin to play. 
after having been all but asphyxiated with tarnation folly. Such a 
scene of waste, and fuss, and frivolity, and vanity, and vexation of 
spirit, I desire not to set my foot in again on this side of time. 
' All sailing down the stream of time into the ocean of eternity, for 
the devil's sake. Amen!' lam sure it wasn't my irritability. 
Looking back on it coolly from here, I am as much disgusted as 
when I was in it. 

I was taken to the Kirkcaldy station instead, of Burnt Island, Wal- 
ter having business there. Of course the first person I saw there 
was Mr. William Swan; and he was 'crossing' too, and took me 
under his ample wing. The sea was as smooth as a looking-glass, 
and I wasn't upset the least in the world. When my cab stopped 
at the gate here everybody ran out to meet me — three aunts, maid, 
and the very cat, with whom I am in high favour; it came purring 
about my feet, and whipping my leg with its tail; but you needn't 
say a word of that to Nero. I respect his too sensitive feelings. 
They made me quite comfortable, and got me warm tea in no time. 
We had just finished when another cab drove to the gate, out of 
which leaped John ' from Richmond, and one of his mother's sisters. 
I rushed off to open the house-door to him. and you should have 
seen how he started and stared. He looked dreadfully weak still, 
poor fellow ! and coughed much, but not so incessantly as when we 
parted in London. He told my aunts I looked better. They gave 
me nice porridge to supper, and plenty of milk — not turned, as 
every drop of milk and cream at Auchtertool was; and I have slept 
better both the nights I have been here. 

By the time I get done with this, and Sunny Bank, I shall be 
heartily glad to get home. Betty says, 'My dear, ye Just toiled 
yersel last year; oh, ye mauna do that again!' And I don't mean 
to. Nobody knows what going into Dumfriesshire is for me. 
Haddington I have now got used to — like the pigs — to a certain 
extent; but Thoruhill! Oh, mercy! 

Grace got hold of your proof-sheet - yesterday, and shut herself 
up in her bedroom to read it. I knocked at the door to say some- 
thing, and she opened it with spectacles on, and the open sheet in 
her hand, looking so fierce at being interrupted. She thought I 
was the maid. Her opinion is, ' It will be a remarkably interesting 
work, — really very interesting; she can see that by even this much.' 
They all send you their kind regards and say, ' Tell him to come 
down.' Don't they wish they may get it. 

Your letter has come since I began this. And, ach ! since I 
began this, I have recollected to-morrow is Sunday; but you will 
get it on Monday morning. I sent the photograph to Isabella a 
week ago. 

Compliments to Ann; and no end of kisses to Nero. 

Yours affectionately, 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 183. 

This is the last (and perhaps the first, and pretty much the one) 
bit of pure sunshine that visited my dark and lonesome, and in the 
end quite dismal and inexpressible, enterprise of Frederick; the 
rest was all darkness, solitude; air leaden coloured, frozen rain, 
sound of subterranean torrents, like Balder's ride to the Death 
Kingdom, ' needing,' as I often said, the obstinacy of ten mules for 
ten or thirteen years at that time of life. Except a small patch of 
writing by Emerson, this is the only bit of human criticism in 
which, across the general exaggeration, I could discover real linea- 
ments of the thing. Very memorable was this of her to me, and 
will for ever be. How memorable are all these letter of 1857, and 
my silent moods (deep sorrow and toil, tinted with gratitude and 
hope) in those summer months! Two china seats (little china 
barrel-shaped things) in the garden here, which were always called 
'Noble-men,' from a spiteful remark of Anne's about the purchase 



' Her clever cousin. 



3 Hist., vol. i. and ii., Friedrich.— J. A. F. 



of them. My midnight ' smoke ' there, looking up into the empy- 
rean and the stars. Ah me ! — T. C. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., Clielsea. 

Craigenvilla, Edinburgh: Monday, Aug 34, 1857. 

Oh, my dear! What a magnificent book this is going to be! The 
best of all your books. I say so, who never flatter, as you are too 
well aware; and who am ' the only person I know that is always in 
the right!' 1 So far as it is here before me, I find it forcible and 
vivid, and sparkling as ' The French Revolution,' with the geniality 
and composure and finish of ' Cromwell ' — a wonderful combination 
of merits! And how you have contrived to fit together all those 
different sorts of pictures, belonging to different sorts of times, as 
compactly and smoothly as a bit of the finest mosaic! Really one 
may say, of these two first books at least, what Helen said of the 
letters of her sister who died — you remember? — ' So splendidly put 
together one would have thought that hand couldn't have written 
them!' 

It was the sheets that hindered me from writing yesterday; 
though I doubt if a letter posted at Morningside (the Scotch Campo 
Santo) yesterday (Sunday) would have reached you sooner than if 
posted to-day. Certainly it is a devi| of a place for keeping the 
Sunday, this! Such preaching and fasting, and ' touting and pray- 
ing,' as I was never before concerned in! But one never knows 
whence deliverance is to come any more than misfortune. I was 
cut out of all, or nearly all, my difficulties yesterday by the simple 
providential means of — a bowel complaint! It was reason enough 
for staying away from church; excuse enough for declining to be 
read to; and the loss of my dinner was entirely made up for by the 
loss of my appetite! Nothing could have happened more oppor- 
tunely! Left at home with Pen (the cat), when they had gone 
every one to her different (' Place of Worship,' I opened my desk to 
write you a letter. But I would just take a look at the sheets first. 
Miss Jess had put a second cover on the parcel, and forwarded it by 
railw T ay on Saturday night; and I had not been able to read then, 
by the gaslight, which dazzles my eyes. It is oue of the little 
peculiarities of this bouse that there isn't a candle allowed in it of 
any sort — wax, dip, moulded, or composite! Well, I took up the 
sheets and read ' here a little and there a little,' and then I began at 
the beginning and never could stop till I had read to the end, and 
pretty well learnt it by heart. I was still reading when Church 
came out, and so my letter got nipt in the bud. If it is so interest- 
ing for me, who have read and heard so many of the stories in 
it before, what must it be to others to whom it is all new? the 
matter as well as the manner of the narrative! Yes, you shall see, 
it will be the best of all your books — and small thanks to it! It 
has taken a doing! 

I suppose you are roasting again. Here there has been no such 
heat since I came north as in the last three days — mercury at 75° in 
the shade yesterday. But there is plenty of east wind to keep one 
from suffocating, provided one can get it without the dust. I used 
to fancy Piccadilly dusty; but, oh, my, if you saw the Morningside 
Road ! 

I must tell you a compliment paid me before I conclude. A lady 
I hadn't seen for twenty years came to call for me. ' You were ill 
I heard,' she said. 'Ah, yes, it is easy to see you have suffered! 
an entire wreck, like myself.' Then, looking round on my three 
aunts, ' Indeed, like all of us! !' 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane W. Caelyle. 

What of Lady Sandwich? You never mention her. Fleming 5 
at Raith! I should have been as astonished to meet him in Kirk- 
caldy, as to meet Tiger Wull's 3 ' finest blackcock that ever stepped 
the streets of Greenock!' 

LETTER 184. 

In final settlement of heritage into equal parts, John Welsh, 
senior, totally omitted her (i.e. her father, who was eldest, and had 
been the benefactor and stay of all the family), of which I remem- 
ber she wrote at the time to me, nobly sorrowful — not ignobly then 
or ever, in that case or in any. — T. C. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

Sunny Bank : Friday, August 28, 1837 
Here I am, dear, an incarnation of ' the bad sixpence.' Sixteen 
miles nearer home, anyhow. I left Edinburgh at two yesterday, 
was at Longniddry by half-past two, and didn't get to Haddington 
till four. Such complete misunderstanding exists between the 
little Haddington cross-train and all other trains, that one may lay 
one's account with having to wait always three-quarters of an hour 
at the least. Then the waiting-room is ' too stuffy for anything,' 
and the seated structure outside expressly contrived for catching 
cold in; so that one is fain to hang about on one's legs in space. 

' ' Faut avouer. ma chere, je ne trouve que moi qui aie toujours raison,' 
said Madame Lafayette. 
- Fleming— Old fogie of fashion ; once Charles Buller's ' attached.' 
3 'Teeger Willi, 1 Tiger Will— William Dunlop, a well-known cousin of hers, 
one of the strangest men of his age, with an inexhaustible sense of fun. One 
friend promised another (according to Wull) ' the finest blackcock that,' &c. 



100 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



The bother of all this, taken together with the excitement of my 
rapturous welcome, kept me awake in a high fever, till my doomed 
hour of four o'clock this morning — or something kept me awake 
that the devil only knows! It was such an arrival, after all: the 
servants waiting outside the house, smiling and saying, ' Glad to 
see you back, ma'am.' Miss Jess, tumbling into my arms on the 
threshold, 'faintly ejaculating' (as a novelist would say), 'Our 
Precious!' 'Our Beloved!' and beyond her my godmother, ad- 
vancing with her hands stretched out, groping the air, and calling 
out in an excited way, ' Is that my bairn? ' 

The niece and grand-niece were discreel enough to keep upstairs 
till ' the first flush o' meeting ' was over, but were very cordial when 
they appeared. To their credit I must say, they might easily take 
offence at the preference shown me. Even in the midst of these 
raptures my eye sought and discovered your letter on the usual 
table, but I refrained from opening it (paragon of politeness that I 
was!) till dinner was over, for which I had already kept them wait- 
ing an hour. 

They think me looking much better. Indeed, my first fortnight 
at Craigenvilla, with all its drawbacks of weekly fasts, inordinate 
reading to, gas, and water-cistern, was very good for my health, 
and, on the whole, pleasant to live. I cannot say which of my 
aunts was the kindest to me — they were all so kind. Grace knitted 
me a pair of such warm stockings while I was there; and Ann 
flowered me a most lovely collar; and Elizabeth procured a whole 
calf's stomach (!) for me (now in my carpet-bag) that I might have 
curds at home, as it was the thing I seemed to like best of all that 
they gave me to eat ; and it was so pleasant talking about ' dear old 
long ago ' with those who I felt (for the first time perhaps) had in- 
terests in common with me in it. 

It was better so, surely, I thought, after our affectionate parting; 
far belter so than if I liad gone to law with them about that frac- 
tion of my grandfather's property I might have disputed, and even 
gained it, and put heart-burnings and resentment between my own 
father's sisters and me for evermore. A little true family affection 
is worth a Lireat many hundreds of pounds, especially when one 
isn't needing pounds!" 

Since writing this sheet I have been to Dirleton Castle, and it is 
now dinner-time, and I must take my letter to the post office im- 
mediately after, or you won't hear of me till Tuesday. 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane W. C. 

No date fixed yet, or, indeed, to be spoken of for the moment. 

LETTER 185. 
T. Carlyle, Chelsea. 

Sunny Bank: Sunday, Aug. 30, 1857. 

I am reading the sheets to them — they most likely will not 
live to see the finished book. You never saw more ardent listeners! 
My godmother, with her head bent forward, hearkening with 
her blind eyes, as well as her ears, might sit for a picture of Atten- 
tion. And every now and then oue or other asks some question or 
makes some remark, that shows how intelligently they listen. Miss 
Jess said oue good thing: ' To look merely to the wording — it is so 
brief, so concise, that oue would expect some obscurity in the nar- 
raiivc, or at '.east that it would need a great effort of attention to 
understand it; instead of which the meaning is as clear as glass ! ' 
And Miss Donaldson said, ' I see more than ever in this, my dear, 
what I have always seen in Mr. Carlyle's books, and what I think 
distinguishes him from all the writers of the present day— a great 
love of truth; and, what is more ' (observe the fine discrimination!) 
' a perfect detestation of lies! ' 

I was afraid, having to read in a voice so high pitched, my read- 
ing would not do justice to the thing; but Miss Donaldson asked 
me last night, 'My dear, does Mr. Carlyle read what he writes to 
you bit by bit?' 'Oh, dear, no! he does not like reading aloud.' 
'Then I suppose you read it often over to yourself? For I was 
noticing that in reading those sheets, you did 'it so natural-like, just 
as if it was coming out of your own head ! ' 

I was dreaming last night about going to some strange house, 
among strange people, to make representations about cocks! I went 
on ray knees at last, weeping, to an old man with a cast-metal face 
and grey hair; ami while I was explaining all about how you were 
an author, and couldn't get sleep for these new cocks, my auditor 
flounced off. and I became aware he was the man who had three 
serpent-daughters, and kept people in glass bottles in Hoffman's 
Talel ' I forgot his name, but knew it well enough in my dream. 

A kiss to Nero. Yours ever, 

J. W. C. 
LETTER 186. 
1. Carlyle, Chelsea. 

Sunny Bank: Wednesday, Septembers, 1857. 

Oh, my dear, my dear! you give me the idea of a sensible Chris- 
tian man making himself into a spinning dervish. Oh, ' depend 

> Archivarius Lindhorst : ' Oh, my beautiful little darling! was there ever a 
prettier dream, bad or good? ' 



upon't, the slower thou ridest, the faster thou'lt get,' &c. Thes e 
dinings ' before sunset,' teas ' about ten,' — don't I know what comes 
of all that, and that what comes of it is ' eventually,' ' rale mental 
agony in your own inside'? 1 hardly to be assuaged by blue pill 
and castor oil at a great expense of inward life, "if I hadn't been 
coming home at any rate, your last letter would have determined 
me to come, just to put a spoke in your wheel, that you mayn't 
like a furious grinding-stone, fly all off in sand. 

It will be a great nuisance to" you, I know, when you have got 
the bridle of time shaken off your head, about your heels, and your 
face to the wind, to be again in harness with a little steady-going 
animal, that looks to have her corn and her mashes regularj or lies 
down in the road. 

But bless you, if you hadn't had a counter-pull on you in the di- 
rection of order, ami regularity and moderation, and all that stupid 
sort of thing, where would you have been by this time? Tell me 
that! Oh, how I wish I were home, that horrid journev overl 
Eliza Donaldson says, 'Not like the journey, Mrs. Carlyle? how 
odd!' "I declare it is a consolation for having one's nerves 'all 
gone to smithers,' to see how stolid and unlovable good health 
makes people, with the best intentions too. 

I have broken to Miss Jess the fact that I am going next week, 
on Tuesday or Wednesday; anil before that time I shall surely have 
made up my mind about 'the train. Never fear, but I shall go by 
first-class this time. Only which first-class? Haddington is most 
inconveniently situated as to the railway, which is the reason of 
those strange delays of letters. No express train stops at Longnid- 
dry. 'Well, well, as Nancy at Craigenputtock said of Elliot's de- 
scent from the roof, ' Pooh! his own weight will bring him down.' 8 
I shall get home surely by some force of gravitation or other. 

I haven't got through the American novel yet. It is a curious 
book; very nearly a good book but spoiled, like old Sterling's 
famous carriage, by pretending to be too many different things all 
in one. It is ' Quinland ' (a novel), or it is ' Varieties of American 
Life.' Then it is an allegory (himself tells us that) symbolising the 
Marriage of Genius and Religion. Then it is a note-book of Mr. 
White, or White's opinions of all the authors he has studied, and 
all the general reflections he has ever made. Then it is an Ameri- 
can Wilhelm Meister. Then it is Mr. White's realised Ideal of — a 
new Christian Bible! And, finally, one doesn't know what it is or 
is not; anymore than whether the style is a flagrant imitation of 
you, or of Goethe, or of Jean Paul, or of Emerson. Happily it 
' isn't of the slightest consequence ' which. 

Yours ever affectionately, 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 187. 

Printing of Friedrich, first two volumes, now well advanced. 
Christmas was spent among the most refractory set of proof sheets 
I expect in this world. 

To Mrs. Austin, (he Gill, Annan. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Christmas Day, 1857. 

My dear Mary, — I understood that your brother would write 
himself to-day. to announce the save arrival of your box, the con- 
tents of which were exhibited to him in succession last night. 
When it came to the goose, carried in on my arms like a strange 
new kind of baby (with that belly-baud about it!), he burst into 
such a laugh! ' That fellow I think lias got his quietus' (he said). 

But now he has just come down, and is off for his ride, and when 
I asked ' had he written to Mary? ' he exclaimed wildly that he had 
'fifteen hours of the most awful work of correcting proofs ahead 
of him. that I who had nothing to do should have written to Mary!' 
With all the pleasure in life! had I known in time, instead of 
within just half an hour of post-time — from which is to be sub- 
tracted ten minutes for putting' on my things and running to the 
post-office! But better a line than no letter at all till to-morrow — 
you thinking the while that those blessed birds may be coming to 
harm from being too long on the road ! 

No, my dcai' one 'Chucka'is boiling at this moment for the 
master's dinner (I dine on anything at two o'clock; not being up to 
waiting for Mr. C.'s six or seven o'clock dinners). But I had one 
of the eggs to my breakfast, and it was the very best and biggest I 
ever ate in my life! There were only two broken, and not wasted 
even these; I lifted up the yolks, which lay quite round and whole, 
in a spoon (for puddings). 

I wish I had begun in time, for I had plenty of things to say; 
but I must keep for this time to mere acknowledgment of your 
present — another day I may tell you the rest. 

Yours ever affectionately, 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 188. 

She returned to me Wednesday evening, September 9, evidently 
a little better, says the record. Her winter was none of the best; 
end of the year she is marked very feckless, though full of spirit. 
I, deep all the while in Frederick proofs and fisheries, hoping to 



1 Servant Helen's phrase. 



2 Our ' jack-of -all -trades' servant. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



101 



have all ended — of these two volumes — by the end of May, which 
term in effect was nearly kept. 

In January 1858, we had engaged to a week at the Grange with 
Lord Ashburton, from which my poor Jeaunie (trouble with ser- 
vants, &c, superadding itself) was obliged to excuse herself and 
send me alone, who only stayed three days, This, her dear letter 
during these, which except two tragic moments — first entrance to 
the empty drawing-room in silence of dusk; then another evening 
Lady Sandwich and Miss Baring new hanging the pictures there 
— have left no trace whatever with me. — T. C. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., at the Orange. 

Cheyne Row: Monday, January 18, 1858. 

My dear! ' Ye maun joost excuse us the day! ' I have an aching 
head come to fraternise with my aching side, and between the two 
am ' very much detached;' can't easily sit still to write. For the 
rest, even Geraldine couldn't say of me that I am ' much happier 
for your being away.' I feel as forlorn as — 'the maiden' that 
'milked the cow with the crumpled horn.' My sickness and help- 
lessness striving to ' keep up its dignity,' and, what is more to the 
purpose, to keep its temper in this atmosphere of systematic inso- 
lence and arsenical politeuess, is one of those sufferings through 
which I suppose man (meaning woman) is ' made perfect,' or ought 
to be. 

Then the poor little dog, who was to have been ' company to 
me,' is not recovered from the illness he took before you left. He 
seemed coming to himself yesterday forenoon, though still he had 
not tasted food since the last you gave him; and I stupidly let Mr. 
Piper take him to Fulham. 'He came home— carried most of the 
way, not able to keep his legs — his eyes extinct, his legs stretched 
out cold and stiff. He has lain ever since without moving, but he 
now iooks at me when I stroke him, and his posture is more natu- 
ral. You may fancy how many lucifers I lighted through the 
night, when I felt him quite cold, and couldn't hear him breathing! 
Poor wee Nero! how glad I should be to hear him snoring, or see- 
ing him over-eating himself again! 

Please thank Lady Sandwich for the dear little letter I had from 
her this morning. I don't say 'dear' in the Lady A. sense, but 
really meaning it. I will write to her when I have got my head a 
little above all this troubled water. Also thank Lord Ashburton 
for the game (hare and pheasants). It gives one a taste of the 
pleasures of patronage, having such things to give away. 

Mr. and Mrs. Lowe called to ask for me yesterday morning 
(Sunday) between ten and eleven, on their way to 'the Cottage.' 
Happily they found me in no muddle. In the middle of the day 
Geraldine walked in! She couldn't have managed to reappear at a 
more propitious moment for having her judgment commuted. 

Just one packet of proofs. Though there is no sheet. I send it, 
in case you should stay over Wednesday. Don't hurry for me if 
you get good of the change. It will be all in my own interest your 
staying, if you come back better for it. 

With Geraldine at hand, I don't suffer the same practical incon- 
venience from being confined to the house. I can send her on any 
message. 

Love to Lady Sandwich. 

Yours ever, 

Jane Welsh Carlyle. 

For God's sake don't put such great platches of black wax on 
your letters, to me at least. My heart turned in my throat this 
morning; I thought it was some horrid news from Annaudale. 

LETTER 189. 

Beginning of June, Friedrich quite off my hands. There were 
the usual speculations about sea quarters, covert from the heat, &c. 
(miserable feature of London life, needing to be disanchored every 
year, to be made comparatively a nomadic, quasi-Calmuck life). 
After; much calculating, it is settled I am to go first to the Gill, 
afterwards to Germany, a second time; she, after settling home 
botherations, to go for Nithsdale, Mrs. Pringle, of Lann Hall, press- 
ing to be her hostess. Evening of June 24, with four fat Glasgow 
gentlemen, submissively astonished at my passion for fresh air, set 
off, ride vigilant all night — the last time of my entering Scotland 
with anything of real hope, or other than affectionate gloom and 
pain.— T. C. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., The Gill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Friday, Junje 55, 1858. 

'And the evening and the morning were the first da}'!' 'Let 
alone,' with a sort of vengeance. Exhausted human nature could 
not desire more perfect letting alone! It was wonderful to reflect, 
while breakfasting at nine, that you had probably already break- 
fasted at the Gill in Scotland. After all, railways are a great thing, 
only inferior to 'the Princess of China's "flying bed,"' Prince 
Houssain's ' flying carpet,' and Fortunatus's ' wishing cap.' Trans- 
ported over night from here to there ; from Chancellor's dung-heap, 
the ' retired cheesemonger's dogs, and two-pence worth of nominal 
cream,' away to ' quiet, fresh air,' and ' milk without limit,' in one 
night! If it weren't for the four fat men in the carriage with you, 
wouldn't it be like something in a fairy tale? 



Don't let your enjoyment of 'the country' be disturbed by 
thoughts of me still ' in town.' I won't stay here longer than I 
find it good for me. But what I feel to need at present is, above 
all things human and divine, rest from 'mental worry;' and no- 
where is there such fair outlook of that for me as just at home 
under the present conditions. ' The cares of bread ' ' have been too 
heavy for me lately; and the influx of 'cousins' 2 most wearing; 
and to see you constantly discontented, and as much so with me, 
apparently, as with all other things, when I have neither the 
strength and spirits to bear up against your discontent, nor the ob- 
tuseness to be indifferent to it — that has done me more harm than 
you have the least notion of. You have not the least notion what 
a killing thought it is to have put into one's heart, gnawing there 
day and night, that one ought to be dead, since one can no longer 
make the same exertions as formerly; that one was taken 'for bet- 
ter,' not by any means ' for worse;' and, iu fact, that the only feas- 
ible and dignified thing that remains for one to do is to just die, and 
be done with it. 3 

Better, if possible, to recover some health of body and mind, you 
say. Well, yes; if possible. In that view I go with Neuberg this 
evening to view a field of hay, 

Mrs. Welsh did not come yesterday' — only a note from her to say 
she and John would be here on Saturday afternoon. Her journey 
to Scotland was 'all up,' she said; but no reason given. Not a 
word about the dear horse. 4 So I wrote to bid her remember to 
bring the receipt for him on Saturday. I shall regret his being sent 
for, for I foresee that if he goes he will be left behind, as the short- 
est way of settling the matter. 

I have not spoken to a soul since you left but Charlotte; 5 only 
Lady Airlie called yesterday, and I was out. Charlotte is as kind 
and attentive as possible, and her speech is remarkably sensible. 
She was observing yesterday morning that ' master looked rather 
dull at going away, and I can't say,' she added, ' that you look par- 
ticularly brilliant (!) since his departure.' 

I have got Mrs. Newnham's 6 little sick daughter lying out on the 
green to-day reading fairy tales, to her intense delight. Our green 
to her is grander than the Grange grounds to us. 

No letters for you but one from Oxford, requiring information 
about India. 1 Nero is much astonished that you do not come down 
in the mornings to take him out. He runs upstairs and then down 
to me, and stares up in my face, saying as plainly as possible, ' did 
you ever? ' 

Give them at the Gill my kind regards. 

Yours ever, 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 190. 



Mrs. Russell, Thornhill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Sunday, June 27, 1858. 

Dearest Mary, — It is so long since I wrote, and I have been so 
bothered and bewildered in the interval, that I can't- recollect 
whether it is your turn or my own to write. But whosesoever turn 
it is, the silence is equally needing to be broken, and if I am the 
delinquent, I can only say I have had plenty of excuse for all my 
sins of omission of late weeks. First, my dear, the heat has really 
been nearer killing me than the cold. London heat! nobody knows 
what that is till having tried it; so breathless, and sickening, and 
oppressive, as no other heat I ever experienced is! Then the quan- 
tities of visitors rushing about me at this season, complicated by an 
influx of cousins, to be entertained on special terms, have taken out, 
in talk, my dregs of strength and spirit! 

Then Mr. Carlyle, in the collapse from the strain of his book, and 
the biliousness developed by the heat, 'has been so wild to ' get away,' 
and so incapable of determining where to go, and when to go, that 
living beside him has been like living the life of a weathercock, in 
a high wind, blowing from all points at once! — sensibility super- 
added ! — so long, at least, as he involved me in his ' dissolving 
views.' The imaginary houses, iu different parts of the kingdom, 
in which I have had to look round me on bare walls, and apply my 
fancy to furnishing with the strength I have (!) (about equal to my 
canary's, which, every now and then, drops off the perch on its 
back, and has to be lifted up), would have driven me crazy, I think, 
if one day I hadn't got desperate, and burst out crying. Until a 
woman cries men never think she can be suffering. Bless their 
blockheadism! However, when I cried, and declared I was not 
strong enough for all that any more, Mr. C. opened his eyes to the 
fact, so far as to decide that, for the present, he would go to his 
sister's (the Gill), and let me choose my own course after. And to 
the Gill he went last Wednesday night, and since then I have been 

1 Mazzini, on his Plot expeditions. 

2 Maggie and Mary, of Auchtertool, had been to the Isle of Wight for winter; 
lately home again. 

3 Alas! alas! sinner that I am! 

4 Poor horse ' Fritz, 1 beautiful, stout, a-nd loyal, had been nearly killed (on 
arsenic diet) by a villain here, and was now roaming in grass near Richmond. 

6 The new maid, a fine little Chelsea creature— courageously, with excellent 
discernment, and with very good success, now taken on trial. 

a An astonishingly good old cook, who sometimes officiates here — curious 
Chelsea specimen too. 

7 Sent that to John Mill (after long years of abeyance), who kindly granted 
the young man 'a few minutes' interview.' 



102 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



resting, and already feel better for the rest, even without ' change 
of air.' 

What my own course will be I haven't a notion! The main 
point iu my system of rest is, to postpone not only all doing, but all 
making up mymind to do; to reduce myself as much as possible to 
a state of vacant, placid idiotcy. That is the state, I am sure, a 
judicious doctor would recommend for the moment. When the 
time comes for wishing for change and action, it will be time to de- 
cide where to go. Meanwhile I shall see what being well let alone 
will do for my health. All the cousins are gone now, the visitors 
going, no household cares (' cares of bread,' as Mazzini calls them), 
for, with no husband to study, housekeeping is mere play, and my 
young maid is a jewel of a creature. It seems to me the best chance 
I have had for pickingjup a little strength this good while. 

I suppose you will be having my aunt Aim again soon. I hear 
from them very seldom. I should like so much if I could be set 
down there in 'the Princess of China's tlyiug bed,' or on 'Prince 
Houssain's flying carpet,' to land at Thornhill, before the fine 
weather end: but the length of journey by rail terrifies me, especially 
the length of the journey back; Mrs. Pringle, I dare say, half ex- 
pects me to visit her in August, for I have never said positively I 
would not, and she has pressed my coming most kindly. But to 
say where I will not go would require consideration and decision, 
as well as saying where I will go. And, as I have said, I mean to 
be an idiot for a time, postponing all mental effort. 

Do write to me; I don't feel to know about you at all. Love to 
the doctor. 

Your affectionate 

Jane W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 191. 
T. GarlyU, The Gill. 
5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Sunday night, July 4, 1858. 

Ach! what a three days and three nights I have had, dear! 
Jonah iu the whale's belly could not have had worse. ' Brighton ' 
still I suppose! I was not to get off from that adventure with only 
one night and day of torture. I must have caught cold that day, 
and had it unpronounced in my nerves till Friday, when it broke 
out iu sore throat, headache, faceaehe, rheumatism all over, retch- 
ing and fever! Certainly I had done nothing after to give me a 
Cold. But that was folly enough. I knew quite well that I was 
not fit for such an excursion; and yet I went, ' going whether I 
could or not.' ' My only comfort was to be at home, and not trans- 
acting these horrors on a visit, or in a wretched sea-side lodging. 

I had some sleep this morning, and the cold seems now concen- 
trating in my head — not in my chest, which would have been a 
drearier prospect. Don't disturb yourself about my being ill in 
your absence — that is to say, about the absence part of it. Outside 
of myself I have nothing to complain of. Charlotte is much kinder 
and helpfuller than Anne was, and the comfort of talking with you 
now aud then would have been counterbalanced in my present cir- 
cumstances by ' the cares of bread.' Besides, I don't mean to be ill 
long, and once rid of this, won't I take care how I expose myself 
and over-fatigue myself again! 

I can have as much society as I like, but I prefer none when I am 
ill; aud I have these delightful volumes of Tourgueneff 's to amuse me 
when I am up to being amused. I am gone ' into the couutry ' ' at 
the shortest notice and on the cheapest terms ' (as the undertakers' 
sign-boards have it). I have made the sideboard and large sofa 
change places, arranged the back parlour as a boudoir, filled up 
the folding doors with the screen, and look out on nothing but 
green leaves and the ' nobleman's seats! '■ Moreover, the dunghill 
is quite suppressed; I have not felt a whiff of it since the letter was 
written. To be sure, the hot weather went with you; the last week 
lias been like winter. I have a fire, so has Mrs. Hawkes, and the 
fur rug is again in action. I have surely more amusing things to 
tell you ; but I must leave off for to-night. I am dead tired already. 
Besides, to-morrow I may have a letter from you to answer. Don't 
forget to tell me the address to put on the newspaper for America. 

Monday. 

'Nothing for Craigenputtock to-day.' 3 Awell! you waited, I 
suppose, for an answer, you cross thing! And if my sore throat 
on Friday had turned to ' the sore throat.' as I was half expecting, 
you might have waited long enough, and then wouldn't you have 
been ' vaixed' .' 

Neuberg came on Saturday evening, and, being told I couldn't 
see anyone, he went up to the study ' to get some books.' Half an 
hour after, I was going to my bedroom, and came on him, standing 
quite noiselessly on the landing-place, so I had to take him in and 
give him a cup of my tea, which was ready; and then he had the 
sense to go. 

I am rather better to-day; had about four hours' sleep, and came 
down to breakfast. It is still very cold. I look forward to spending 
the day under my fur rug, reading Tourgueneff— nobody to be let 
in but Mrs. Hawkes, who will come at four o'clock. I have a nice 



1 Groom's phrase about a horse of mine. 
- China barrel-shaped things (supra I, p. <J9 
3 Postmaster at Dumfries (painfully civil). 



little fire opposite me in my back-room, and the prospect of the 
'nobleman's seat.' Yours ever, 

J. W. C. 
LETTER 192. 
Notes op a Sitter-still. 
T. Cartyle, Esq., Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea: Sunday night, July 11, 1858. 

Botkin (what a name!), your Russian translator, has called. 
Luckily Charlotte had been forewarned to admit him if he came 
again. He is quite a different type from Tourgueneff, though a 
tall man. this one too. I should say he must be a Cossack — not 
that I ever saw a Cossack or heard one described, instinct is all I 
have for it. He has flattened high-boned cheeks — a nose flattened 
towards the point — small. very black, deep-set eyes, with thin semi- 
circular eyebrows — a wide thin mouth — a complexion white-grey, 
and the skin of his face looked thick enough to make a saddle of! 
He does not possess himself like Tourgueneff, but bends and ges- 
ticulates like a Frenchman. 

He burst into the room with wild expressions of his ' admiration 
for Mr. Carlyle.' I begged him to be seated, and he declared ' Mr. 
( arlyle was the man for Russia.' I tried again and again to 'en- 
chain' a rational conversation, but nothing could I get out of him 
but rhapsodies about you iu the frightfuTlest Euglish that I ever 
heard cut of a human head! It is to be hoped that (as he told me) 
he reads English much better than he speaks it, else he must have 
produced an inconceivable translation of 'Hero Worship.' Such 
as it is. anyhow, 'a large deputation of the Students of St. Peters- 
burg' waited on him (Botkin), to thank him in the strongest terms 
for having translated for them "Hero Worship,' and made known 
to them Carlyle. And even the young Russian ladies now read 
' Hero Worship,' and ' unnerstauts it thor — lie.' lie was all in a 
perspiration when he went away, aud so was I! 

I should like to have asked him some questions; for example, 
how he came to know of your Works (he had told me he had had 
to send to England for them 'at extreem cost'), but it would have 
been like asking a cascade! The best that I could do for him I 
did. I gave him a photograph of you, and put him up to carrying 
it in the top of his hat ! 

I don't think I ever told you the surprising visit I had from 
David Aitken ' aud Bess. I was so ill when I wrote after that all 
details were omitted. Charlotte had come to say one of the latch- 
keys was refusing to act. I went to see what the matter was, and 
when we opened the door, behold, David at the bottom of the 
steps, aud Bess preparing to knock! 'Is this Mrs. Carlyle's? ' 
she asked of myself while I was gazing dumfoundered. My 
goodness!' cried I. At the sound of my voice she knew me — not 
till then — though at my own door! and certainly the recognition 
was the furthest from complimentary I ever met, She absolutely 
staggered, screaming out, 'God preserve me, Jane! That you?' 
Pleasant! David coming up the steps brought a little calm into 
the business, and the call got itself transacted better or worse. 

They were on their way home from Italy. Both seemed rather 
more human than last time, especially David, whose face had taken 
an expression of 'Peace on earth and good-will unto men.' Bess 
had lost a tooth or two, was rather thinner, and her eyes hollower; 
otherwise much the same. 

They invited me very kindly to Miuto, and he seemed really in 
earnest. 

July 16. 

Surely, dear, the shortest, most unimportant note you can write 
is worth a bit of paper all to itself? Such a mixed MS., with flaps 
too, may be a valuable literary curiosity 'a hundred years hence,' 
out ,s a rial of patience to the present reader, who, on eagerly 
opening a letter from you, had not calculated on having to go 
through a process like seeking the source of the Niger, in a small 
way. 

For the rest, you don't at all estimate my difficulties in writing a 
letter every day, when I am expected to tell how I am, and when 
' I's ashamed to say I's no better.' Dispense me from saying .any- 
thing whatever about my health; let me write always 'Notes,' and 
t would be easy for me to send you a daily letter. As easy at least 
as it is to be lively with the callers, who go away in doubt (like 
George Cooke) 'whether I am the most stoical of women, or whe- 
ther there is nothing in the world the matter with me?' 

But you want to be told how I sleep, &c. &c. ; and can't you 
understand that having said twice, thrice, call it four times, ' I am 
sleeping hardly any, I am very nervous and suffering,' the fifth 
time tliat I have the same account to repeat, ' horrible is the 
thought to me,' and I take refuge in silence. Wouldn't you 
do the same? Suppose, instead of putting myself in the omnibus 
the other day, and letting myself be carried in unbroken silence to 
Richmond and back again, I had sat at home writing to you all 
the thoughts that were in my head? But that I never would have 
dune; not a hundredth part of the thoughts in my head have ever 
been or ever will bespoken or written — as long as I keep my senses, 
al least. 

1 Minister of Minto and wife (once Bess Stoddart), Bradfute's niece and 
heiress. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



103 



Only don't you, 'the apostle of silence,' find fault 'with me for 
putting your doctrine in practice. There are days when I must 
hold my peace or speak things all from the lips outwards, or things 
that, being of the nature of self-lamentation, had better never be 
spoken. 

My cold in the meanwhile? It is still carrying on, till Lonsdale 
coom, 1 in the shape of cough and a stuffed head; but it does not 
hurt me anywhere, and I no longer need to keep the house; the 
weather being warm enough, I ride iu an omnibus every day more 
or less. 

All last night it thundered; and there was one such clap as I 
never heard in my life, preceded by a flash that covered my book 
for a moment with blue light (I was reading in bed about three in 
the morning, and you can't think what a wild effect that blue light 
on the book had!). To-day it is still thundering in the distance, 
and soft, large, hot drops of rain falling. What of the three 
tailors? 

I could swear you never heard of Madame de . But 

she has heard of you; and if you were iu the habit of thanking God 
'for the blessing made to fly over your head,' you might offer a 
modest thanksgiving for the honour that stunning lady did you in 
galloping madly all round Hyde Park in chase of your 'brown 
wide-awake' the last day you rode there; no mortal could predict 
what the result would be if she came up with you. To seize your 
bridle and look at you till she was satisfied was a trifle to what she 
was supposed capable of. She only took to galloping after you 
when more legitimate means had failed. 

She circulates everywhere, this madcap 'Frenchwoman.' She 
met ' the Rev. John ' (Barlow), and said, when he was offering del- 
icate attentions, 'There is just one thing I wish you to do for me — 
to take me to see Mr. Carlyle.' 'Tell me to ask the Archbishop of 
Canterbury to dance a polka with you,' said Barlow, aghast, 'and 
I would dare it, though I have not the honour of his acquaintance; 
but take anybody to Mr. Carlyle — impossible!' 'That silly old 
Barlow won't take me to Carlyle,' said the lady to George Cooke; 
'you must do it then.' 'Gracious heavens!' said George Cooke; 
'ask me to take you up to the Queen, and introduce you to her, 
and I would do it, and "take the six months' imprisonment," or 
whatever punishment was awarded me; but take anybody to Mr. 
Carlyle — impossible!' 

Soon after this, George Cooke met her riding in the Park, and 
said, ' I passed Mr. Carlyle a little way on, in his brown wide- 
awake.' The lady lashed her horse and set off in pursuit, leaving 
her party out of sight, and went all round the Park at full gallop, 
looking out for the wide-awake. She is an authoress in a small 
way, this charming Frenchwoman; and is the wife of a newspaper 

editor at Paris, who ' went into the country ' (Miss F told me) 

'and brought back a flowerpot full of earth, and, on the strength 
of that, put de to Ids name of Monsieur .' 

But the absurdest fact about her is, that, being a 'Frenchwoman,' 
she is the reputed daughter of Lord F. and a Mrs. G. ! It is in Lord 

F.'s house that she stays here. Miss F also declares she was a 

celebrated singer at Munich. But Miss F is a very loose talker, 

and was evidently jealous of the sensation the lady produced by her 
wit and eccentricities. 

Will that suit you? 

LETTER 193. 

Larkin (Henry; young Londoner, then collector or cashier on the 
Chelsea steamers, now partner in some prosperous metallurgic or 
engineering business) had come to me some three years before this 
in a loyally volunteer and interesting manner — a helper stnt me by 
favour of Heaven, as I often said and felt in the years coming. 
He did for me all manner of maps, indexes, summaries, copyiugs, 
sortings, miscellanea of every kind, iu a way not to be surpassed 
for completeness, ingenuity, patience, exactitude, and total and 
continual absence of fuss. Never had I loyaller or more effective 
help; nowhere was there a more honest-minded man; really of fine 
talent, too; clear, swift discernment, delicate sense of humour, &c. ; 
but he preferred serving me in silence to any writing he could do 
(that was his own account on volunteering himself). Till Frederick 
ended he was my factotum, always at hand; and still from the dis- 
tance is prompt and eager to help me actually; a man to thank 
Heaven for, as I still gratefully acknowledge. — T. C. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., T/ie Gill. 

Chelsea: -July 19, 1858. 
There, my dear! I send you a wonderful communication — a map 
of your new 'parish' and township in Australia! I have spent au 
hour over the packet before I could understand what it all meant. 
The letter accompanying the maps was inserted between them, so 
that it was not discovered at first. There are six copies of this 
map that I send you, and there is a large colored map on exces- 
sively thick paper, professing to be 'Plan of the Township of Car- 
lyle, in the Parish of Carlyle. Murray District; ' to which is affixed 
the signature of 'C. Gavan Duffy, Minister of Land and Works.' 
This I will not send — it would cost so much — unless you wish for 

1 Cumberland old woman (supra). 



it at once. Poor Duffy appears by the letter to be very ill, but 
past the worst. 

It is such a beautiful da}', this! as clear as a bell, and not too 
warm. And for quiet, I queslion if you be nearly as quiet at 
the Gill. Charlotte is gone for her quarter's holiday, went off at 
eight in the morning with her nominal parents to Gravesend; and 
I wouldn't have Mrs. Newnham come till two o'clock, when my 
dinner would be needed, and there might be ' knocking at the 
door ! ' 

The only sign of life in the house is the incessant chirp of a little 
ugly brown bird, that I rescued yesterday afternoon from some 
boys who were killing it; bought of them for twopence; and now 
I find it cannot feed itself and I have to put crowdy into its mouth 
(which is always gaping) with a stick. 

I went in an omnibus to Putney yesterday evening, and came 
back outside. It is as pleasant as a barouche aud four, the top of 
an omnibus; but the conductors don't like the trouble of helping 
one up. When I came home at six, I found Charlotte wildly ex- 
cited over Mrs. Cameron, who had waited for me more than an 
hour, played ou the piano, and written 'a long letter on three 
sheets of paper.' Certainly she had spoiled three sheets in telling 
me she had come to carry me off to Little Holland House, aud that 
she would send back the carriage for me at nine, aud bring me 
home at eleven. Charlotte told her I had been very ill, and was 
never out late; but that made no difference — the carriage would be 
sent; only if I could not come, she (Charlotte) must come over to 
Little Holland House and tell them in time to slop the carriage — 
'it was a long way to send a carriage for nothing.' She did not 
consider it was a long way for my only servant to be sent for 
nothing. 

While I was hesitating about sending, for of course I never 
dreamt of going, Mr. Neuberg came to tea; and. needing Charlotte 
at home, I found it too absurd that she should have to leave me to 

fet the tea, while she went for Mrs. Cameron's whim to Holland 
louse. So I wrote a note, and coolly gave it to the coachman to 
take back instead of myself. 

You are very kind in pressing your present refuge on me, but I 
will never allow you to either ' pig iu ' at Scotsbrig, or to commit 
yourself to Providence at Dumfries. My greatest comfort all this 
time has been just knowing you situated according to your needs, 
in full enjoyment of air, milk, and quiet. Never fear but 1 will 
make some arrangement for myself when it becomes desirable that 
I should leave Loudon. I am not yet equal to so long a journey as 
to Scotland, but I am improving, and' taking as much exercise as is 
good for me; change of air too. 

I am going to-morrow to Mr. Larkin's mother's, to spend the day 
in that beautiful garden from which he brings me such bouquets. 
Mr. Larkin is to come himself at twelve o'clock to take me; and 
tbe next day Mrs. Forster is to come and take me to early dinner 
iu Montague Square. I have had even an invitation to Ristori's 
benefit to-night, shawls and cloaks to be iu readiness the moment 
I left the box, &c, and brought home with closed windows; but 
that, of course, I screamed at the idea of. It was little Mrs. 
Royston who wished to take me, a box having been given her. 
So "you see I am very kindly seen to. I have slept better these two 
nights, and am rather stronger, and my cough is abated; speaking 
I find the worst thing for it. Yours ever, 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 194 

I am now about setting out on my second German tour 'to visit 
all the battlefields of Fnedrich,' which cost me a great deal of mis- 
ery, but was not honestly to be avoided. She, being rather stronger, 
is going to stay with Miss Baring, at Bay House, Alverstoke. — T. C. 

T. Carlyle, The Gill. 

Chelsea: Thursday, July 29, 1858. 
Oh, my dear, my dear! What did you do with the key of your 
bureau? There is no vestige of a passport in the upper 'little 
drawer next the fire,' the only drawer which is unlocked; the keys 
used to lie in that. I have wasted tbe whole morning in seeking a 
key to open the top part, or another drawer where the keys may be, 
and have found only two of your lost dog-whistles! I don't like to 
have the locks picked till it is hopeless finding the key. If you 
have it or know where you put it, and tell me by Saturday morn- 
ing, there would just be time to send the passport before I start; 
but as I tell you, my morning is all wasted, aud in the afternoon I 
must go up to Piccadilly to get some indispensable little items for 
my visit. I have been kept back these two last days by the cold- 
ness of the weather, and my extreme sensitiveness. The prospect 
of going a journey aud living in another person's house is doing 
me more harm than probably the reality will do; I could 'scream 
at the idea of it ' sometimes, and write off, ' Oh, you must excuse 
me!' But again, just the more I feel nervous, the more I need to 
try anything that, may brace my nerves; and, of course, a doctor 
would tell me to get rid of this incessant little dry cough ' before Oc- 
tober.' I should not say incessant, for in the forenoons, when I hold 
my tongue, I hardly cough at all — at least it is quite another sort 
of cough, bringing up phlegm at intervals; but in the evening, 
especially if any one comes, it is as incessant as the chirp of my 



104 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



adopted sparrow. I am not getting weaker, however, except in 
my mind. I take exercise every day, ' chiefly in an omnibus, Mr. 
Carlyle!' And I try everyday to do or see something cheering; I 
should soon fall into melancholy mania if I didn't. Last evening, 
for example, 1 had old Mrs. Larkin to tea — such a pretty little 
rough tea. you can't fancy, aud Mrs. Larkin was so pleased. And 
I had Mrs. Hawkes to talk to them, aud George Cook came acci- 
dentally. George Cook is very attentive and sympathetic to me. 
But the key, the keyl 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 195. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., The Gill. 

Bay House: Monday, Aug. 2, 1858. 

All right, dear; I got through my journey much better than 
could have been expected, having slept even soundly (mercifully), 
just the last night before leaving. A fat, old, real lady in the car- 
riage opposite me paid me delicate attentions; ' lent me her smelling 
bottle, gave me her nosegay, put her dressing-case under my feet, 
<fcc. &c, having commenced acquaintance by asking, ' Have you 
been poorly long? ' When she changed trains at Bisuopstoke, she 
looked over her shoulder to say : ' I sincerely hope j'ou may soon 
be better, ma'am.' 

How differently one's looks impress different people! The man 
who drove me from the station (aud charged me three-aud-sixpeuce!) 
evidently took me for well enough to be going to service at Bay 
House, for he turned round as soon as we passed through the gate 
to ask, ' was he to drive round to the back door? ' And then the 
footman who received me took me for deaf! coming close up lo 
me when lie had anything to say, and shouting it into my ear. He 
was the only person I saw for three hours after my arrival. The 
' Miss Barings outwalking;' 'would I wish to be shown to my 
room?' 'Certainly.' "Would I wish any refreshment?' 'Yes, 
acupof tea.' It was brought, and then all lapsed into the profound- 
est silence. I coukl have fancied a pleasanter reception; at the 
same time ' it was coostom in part,' ' no harm meant. 

Having had lots of time to unpack and dress myself, I was first 
in the drawing-room before dinner. A gentleman came in, whom 
I liked the look of, but no word passed between us; then Mrs. 
Mildmay came, and finally my hostess, who assured me she was 
'delighted to see me,' and so I was installed. Another lady entered 
with Emily, whom I recognised as Mrs. Frederick Baring, and the 
gentleman was Frederick Baring, whom I had never seen before, 
and of whom I had got the most absurdly unjust impression. Both 
he and his wife are kindly, unaffected people; he, indeed, strikes 
me as quite a superior man. I had a good deal of talk with him 
yesterday, and am sorry he is gone to-day. His wife went with 
him, so there is now only Mrs. Mildmay and her son. 

The railway jonrney made me so sleepy that I could hardly keep 
my eyes open till I got to bed, and in bed I slept in a wonderful 
manner. My room is the same where I lay three days in a sore 
throat, and the boy 'Jack' had to bring in my breakfast. But no 
association could keep me awake that night. Certainly if pure air, 
and quiet, and wholesome food, and freedom from all ' cares ' but 
of dressing oneself, can cure me, I shall lie cured — in a few days. 

It is Louisa Baring that goes with Lord Ashburton to Scotland 
on Monday. I thought if Emily was going somewhere too, I 
might be wished to go away in less time thau a week; and, at all 
events living on in that sort of fear of over-staying one's welcome 
is very disagreeable. So I thought I had best go frankly to the end 
of it at once, and I said to Emily, when we were walking this 
morning, that I had meant to stay till the end of this week; but, as 
Miss Baring was leaving the place so soon as Monday, perhaps it 
would be more convenient that I should go on an earlier day — 
would she kindly tell me? Emily protested against my going this 
week. She and'Mrs. Mildmay are to be here till the twenty-fourth, 
and I 'had better stay over next week.' The invitation was given 
with cordiality enough to make me feel quite at ease for this week 
anyhow, the rest will disclose itself. The Baring manner is natur- 
ally so shy, and so cold, that I dare say one may easily underrate 
the kindness of feeling which accompanies it. 

Yours ever, 

Jane W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 196. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., The QUI. 

Bay House : Friday, August 7, 185S. 
Only Friday morning, dear, yet! Heaven knows! Possibly this 
may not reach you till Monday. However, when it does reach 
you it won't bring had news. I still have nothing but good to tell 
of myself. I continue to get a very tolerable allowance of sleep, and 
to eat my breakfast ' with the same relish.' '' And, will you believe 
it? I eat two dinners every day. I do that — one at half-past one, 

1 ' Why are these mills goiug to-day?' (.Sunday, in Cumberland.) 'Coos- 
tom in part. 1 

- A phrase of John Jeffrey's (Lord Jeffrey's brother), quasi pathetic: ' eats 
his beef-steak with,' &c. 



and the other at eight; which last, I call, in my own mind, supper, 
aud no tea after. The little nervous cough is entirely gone, and the 
rough cough gets rarer every dry. For the rest, I am quite com 
fortable morally. I never was put more at ease on a visit. I feel 
tn have dropt into the regular life of the house, and to have found 
my place in it, without anybody taking trouble to adjust me, or 
myself taking trouble. 

The only visitor now besides myself is Mrs. Mildmay (yes, Geral- 
diue's mother, a much nicer woman than one fancied her, full of 
fun and good humour). She reads to us for an hour or so after 
breakfast (' Chambers's Annals of Scotland'), while the rest sew. 
Then we go to our rooms to write, or-do anything that needs pri- 
vacy. I, for my part, take always a stroll on the shore before 
lunch at half-past one. At three we go out in the open carriage, 
aud have the pleasantest drives, being permitted to sit perfectly 
silent; Miss Baring seems to think this the natural way of driving 
in the open air, and she is quite right. Coming in about five, there 
are the letters; each one takes her own, and retires to her own room 
till dinner-time. After dinner, till eleven, we talk, and work, and 
read the newspapers, and play piquet. At eleven the butler enters 
with a silver tray, containing four bright crystal tumblers rilled with 
the purest cold water; nothing else whatever. I always take one, 
and have grown to feel a need of it. You cannot think how genial 
the Miss Barings are at home; what a deal of hearty laughing they 
do iu a day ! 

You will foresee that I am not going at the end of ' a week.' Miss 
Baring goes to join Lord A. on Monday; but Emily has pressed me 
quite cordially to remain with her and" Mrs. Mildmay till she goes 
into Norfolk. And, if nothing unforeseen occur to ' dash the cup of 
fame from my brow,' ' I shall remain and be thankful to. I don't 
feel the least drawn to 5 Cheyne Row in your absence; indeed, I 
don't mean to have anything more to do with it than I can help till 
you are there. Don't think me crazy. I have written to Mrs. 
Pringle this morning (the 16th) that I shall be with her, if all go 
well, the end of this month; September is often a fine month in 
Scotland. You may see how much better I am, from this effort of 
moral courage, as well as if you were beside me. I can't be said to 
need 'change of air,' after having had it so long here — don't, in- 
deed, intend to give any ' varnish of duty ' to the journey. It may 
not have the least effect in keeping off illness through the winter; it 
can't in the least add to your comfort when you are only waiting 
for a yacht; but it will be a pleasant way of spending the next 
month, aud perhaps may (if I manage myself carefully) help to keep 
me well through the next month; and, oh, my dear! I have suffered 
so much — so much, and so long — that even a month of respite looks 
to me a thing worth taking any trouble for and spending any money 
for that I can lawfully spend. When I left home I did not believe 
that a change could do so much for me, even for the time being. 
Now that I feel what it has done, I want more of it. There is no 
other place nearer hand where I could get any good ; besides, there 
is no place nearer hand that I am invited to. 

To be sure I might go into lodgings nearer hand; but ' horrible is 
the thought to me! ' and in lodgings I should have the ' cares of 
bread.' One of the reasons I eat so heartily here is, that I have had 
no forethought about the things set before me. Eating the dinner 
one has ordered oneself is, to a sick person, as ungrateful as wear- 
ing the gown one has made oneself is to an inexpert sewer. So 
please don't think me crazy! and, above all, don't fetter yourself 
with me the least iu the world. If the 'yacht'-' turn up before I 
come — if your stay seems to find its natural limit before I come, go 
all the same. As I should try to cut the journey in two by sleeping 
at Liverpool, I could go straight on if you were not there to give me 
a rest and good speed. But it is far off yet, all that; and mean- 
while it may become intolerably cold, or I may catch cold, or fall 
off my sleep, and so become too cowardly ' for anything.' I said 
to Mrs. Pringle I would go if I could, not that I would ' whether I 
could or not.' 

Now I have just been down to lunch, and must get ready for 
Gosport, iu the carriage. I will take this letter on chance of hasten- 
ing it. Yours ever, 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 197. 

Dumfries. — Lord Ashburton did come by that road, and we drove 
together to New Abbey, &c, before his starting again next day. 
Rous, the house doctor. — A copiously medicinal man. ' William 
Harcourt,' the now lawyering, parliamenteering, &c. ; loud man, 
who used to come hither at intervals. ' A glorious bit of colour.' — 
One of Leigh Hunt's little children dixit. — T. C. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., The Gill. 

Bay House: Monday, Aug. 9, 1858. 
How curious if Lord A. be at this moment on the road to Dum- 
fries! Miss Baring started an hour ago in full assurance of finding 
him waiting to go with her to-morrow. Not one word has been re- 
ceived from him since they parted in London, on the understand- 
ing they were to go north together on the 10th ; and I thought it best 

1 Scotch preacher (su])ra). 

3 It I have quite forgotten, what or whom ; only that it never came. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



105 



to say nothing of your news that he was to be at Dumfries on the 
9th. She might have felt mortified at the new arrangement being 
communicated only through me, and nervous about what would 
await her in London. Rous, no doubt, will smooth all down. But 
what an odd man Lord A. is! I hope it will come off all right, the 
meeting at Dumfries, and that it will enliven you for some days. 
Perhaps he will persuade you to go to Loch Luichart? Miss Baring 
is most anxious you should come. By the way, please to send the 
remaining volume of ' Tourgueneff ' to her; she has taken the 
others, and fears there will be great dearth of literature in the High- 
lands. 

I felt quite sorry to see her drive off this morning. She has 
really been most kind to me, and took leave of me quite affection- 
ately ; ' now that I had found my way to them, she hoped I would 
never be so hard to persuade here again.' "We are now reduced to 
three; but Bingham Mildmay is expected. When he comes we are 
to goto inspect 'the camp,' and go again to 'the Island.' The 
camp astonished me the first time I went to walk on the shore — a 
field, about a quarter of a mile off, all covered over with snow-white 
cones. I thought for a moment it was the grandest encampment of 
gipsies. But there are some two thousand soldiers in these tents. 
Near it there is a most beautiful new fort a-building; the guns of 
which, if they ever come into action, will smash right through Bay 
House. 

On Saturday we left for the island at eleven, and did not return 
till six, — Emily, Mrs. Mildmay, and I. At Ryde we got an open 
fly, and drove to a place up the shore called Spring Vale, where Sir 
Henry Mildmay and his wife and rosebuds were rusticating. Very 
human, pleasant people. They had been warned of our coming, 
and had dinner (No. 1) waiting for us. Then we drove to St. Clair, 
the property and work of art of Colonel Harcourt, and Lady Cath- 
erine (uncle of William Harcourt). There, too, Mrs. Mildmay in- 
troduced me with graceful emphasis; and I was very courteously 
treated and shown about. A lady said I 'had forgotten her,' that 
she was the Mrs. Malcolm who dined with us at Lady Sandwich's; 
she is sister to Colonel Harcourt. The sea being as smooth as glass 
that day, I wasn't in the least sick, and the whole affair passed off 
to the general satisfaction. 

Mrs. Mildmay is going to take us to Osborne to call for Lady 
Caroline Barrington, the governess to 'the Royal children,' and on 
to Cowes to call for somebody else. In fact, she is the most good- 
natured of women, Mrs. Mildmay, besides being excessively amus- 
ing in herself. She is not the widow of Sir Walter's friend, but of 
his nephew and the heir to — — ■. One is so apt to lose a generation 
nowadays. 

Did I tell you that Crocker's house is now a royal residence, has 
been given to little Prince Alfred, who is learning to be a sailor? 
I saw him this morning shaking hands with two of his tutors, and 
jumping into his little boat with the third — a slight, graceful little 
boy. The Queen came over and breakfasted with him one morn- 
ing, and another time took tea with him. He keeps a little red flag 
flying when at home, which adds ' a glorious bit of colour ' to the 
scene. 

Your description of ' Craig-o-putta ' made me feel choked; I 
know what that wood must be grown to. Close on the house, form- 
ing a great dark shearing-hook before the windows. I always 
thought the laying out of that planting detestable, and if I were liv- 
ing there I would set fire to it. 

This paper is thick, so I will take off half a sheet to make room 
for poor little Charlotte's unexpected letter — worth reading. 

Yours ever, 

Jane W. Cahlyle. 

LETTER 198. 

'What ornament and grandeur!' — Indignant old sailor to me 
once about his new binnacle in his new-fangled steamship. ' Suet 
and plums' was a casual reflection of my own. Rob Austin used 
to be our private post-boy once a week. — T. C. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., Dresden. 

Lann Hall: Friday, Sept. 10, 1858. 

I was sure of it; knew without being told that the bathe in the 
Baltic had given you cold. You ought to know by this time that 
just the more you feel drawn to dD those rash things, the more you 
should keep yourself from doing them. God grant this wild-hunts- 
man rush over Germany don't spoil all the good you got in quiet 
Annadale! But you had to do it; would not have finished your 
book in peace without having done it! 

I saw Eaves about the horse before I left; but he could not go 
out to Richmond till the following Sunday, when he got a good 
ducking to settle his account for the Sunday-breaking. He had no 
difficulty in finding the horse, who was in capital condition, and as 
nimble on his feet as the Irishman's flea. He (the horse) has no 
end of pasture to roam about in, and has ' found a friend ; ' formed 
a romantic attachment to another horse of his own way of thinking; 
they are always together, both in their feeding and their playing, 
and evidently enjoy their liberty and their abundant grass. So you 
may be quite happy in your mind so far as the horse is concerned. 

Charlotte is behaving herself quite well so far as I can ascertain. 

The sparrow whom I did design to train to flying, and 'eventu- 



ally' to flying aicay, died before my return from Bay House; but 
the poor little canary has recovered health and feathers under the 
nursing of Mrs. Huxham, in whose ' bosom it speuds several hours 
every day; ' I should think not too happy hours! ' 

For the rest, one's life here is remarkably cheerful. It is the very 
loveliest glen I ever saw, endeared to me by old associations. The 
people in it are all remarkably prosperous, and were always hos- 
pitable. They are glad to see me again, and I am glad to see them. 

The practical result has been a perfect explosion of lunches to my 
honour and glory, all over Glen Shinnel and Glencarin. I would 
not be out after sunset, so these lunches are early dinner-parties; 
and, oh, my! what 'ornament and grandeur!' what 'suet and 
plooms.' I assure you, not at the Grange itself have I seen better 
food or better wine (champagne) than these big farmers or little lairds 
bring forth to one here ' in a lordly dish ! ' And it is so much heartier 
a sort of hospitality than one finds in the south! It makes one feel 
younger by twenty years! I catch myself laughing sometimes with 
a voice that startles myself as being not like my own but my 
mother's, who was always so much gayer than I. Indeed, it is 
good for me to be here; and I wish my visit had come off while you 
were at the Gill, that you might have tried it too. Better material 
accommodation you could have nowhere; and Mrs. Pringle has tact 
and consideration enough, I think, to have suited the moral atmos- 
phere to the shorn lamb (?). 

The question is now about your journey home? Are you going 
straight to London? If that is decidedly the most convenient way 
for yourself, of course I should not so much as suggest your re- 
turning by here; and so far as my own journey is concerned, I 
should rather prefer doing it 'all to myself (as the children say). 
Perhaps I might choose to stay a night at Liverpool. At all 
events, I might need to have a window shut when you preferred 
it open. But if you liked to return by Leith, and to be a little 
longer in the country under easy circumstances, you could not do 
better than stop here. About your welcome you may feel the most 
exuberant assurance. 

If you decide to go straight to London, I should know as soon 
as possible, that I ma}' shape my own course accordingly. For I 
should not like your being done for by only Charlotte. I have a 
week's visit promised to Mrs. Russell, and I also undertook to stay 
a few days at Scotsbrig, in case Dr. C. and his ' poor boys' lingered 
on at London till the end of my time here. I will see Mary and 
Jane on my road back. But I need to give myself as little rough 
travelling as possible, not to be going and catching a cold after all 
these mighty efforts to strengthen myself. TheDonaldsons and 
my aunts won't believe I can mean to go away without seeing them. 
To see the dear old women at Sunny Bank once more I would 
gladly incur the expense of the journey there; but that is the least 
of it. The ' tashing ' myself which Betty so strongly protests 
against must not be ventured. 

We have just had one perfectly fair, beautiful day since I oame 
(last Wednesday), and I spent it in an excursion to — Craigenputtock! 
We took some dinner with us, and ate it in the dining-room, with 
the most ghastly sensations on my part. The tenant was at Dum- 
fries; the wife very civil; the children confiding to a degree. Their 
father 'had wine.' ' whiles took ower muckle.' We called on the 
Austins and Corsons. Nobody knew me! or could guess at me! 
Peter said I 'micht hae speaket to him seven year, and he wouldna 
hae faund me oot.' Peter privately stroked my pelisse, and asked 
Mrs. Pringle, 'That'll be real silk, I'm thinking?' 'Satin,' said 
she. 'Aye,' said Peter, 'nae doot, nae doot, the best o't.' Rob 
Austin almost crunched my fingers in his big hand, and that was 
the only pleasant thing that befell me at my ' ancestral home.' Ach 
Gott ! 

I wrote already to Dresden. 

Mrs. Pringle has been trying to write you a note, pressing you to 
come here on your way back ; and now she comes with her face 
like to burst, asking me to ' say it all for her. She is so afraid to 
write to you.' 

LETTER 199. 
To Mr. James Austin, The G-ill, Annan. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Thursday, Sept. 30, 1858. 

My dear Jamie, — I never saw -such a thing in all my life! I 
plunged into a carriage full of ill-bred, disobliging, English tourists; 
they would make no room for me with my beehive and all my 
little things! I had to force a way for myself and my belongings, 
and when I had got my hands freed, and turned round to shake 
hands with you, before I sat down, behold the door was shut, and 
you had disappeared, and we were in motion ! I could have cried 
for vexation; and could not get it out of my head all the road to 
London — that I had come off without a word of thanks for } T our 
kindness tome, or a word of leave-taking! And I felt such a 
detestation of these broad-hatted women in the carriage with me, 
whose disobligingness had been the cause of my flurry. 

I went to the guard, at Carlisle, and told him I would not go on 
with these people, and should like to have a carriage all to myself. 
He seemed quite taken with my assurance, and asked if I could put 
up with one lady beside me? I said, ' Yes, if she were not trouble- 



Far too flattering an account. 



106 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLTLE. 



some! ' He took me to a stout gentleman (the clerk at Carlisle, I 
suppose) and said, ' Tbis lady wants a carriage all to herself! but 
she would allow one lady with her.' The gentleman said ' it was a 
very natural wish; but he did not see bow it could be gratified; 
however, if I would keep quiet beside him, be would see what was 
possible! ' And the result was, I got a carriage with only one lady 
in it! Nothing like a modest impudence for gelling one ou in tbis 
world! So far from objecting to the quantity of my luggage, they 
asked 'Was that all? Had I uotbing more?"' and they put up my 
things quite softly, whereas everybody else's, I noticed, were 
pitched up like quoits! The result is, that not so much as one egg 
was broken! And much satisfaction was diffused over the house 
by the unpacking of that improvised hamper! 

When I found bow much at ease I was in my carriage, I re- 
gretted not bringing away that kitten! It might have played about! 
But wasn't I thankful prudence had prevailed when I found my- 
self already the enviable mistress of a kitten exactly the same size, 
but black as soot! Charlotte had taken the opportunity of my 
absence to discover ' there were mice in the house,' and bring home 
a new pet to herself! The dog and it are dear friends, for a won- 
der. I was delighted to see it this morning tryiug to ride on the 
dog's back! 

Mr. C. was waiting for me, and had firmly believed for the last 
quarter of an hour that it was no use, as I must certainly have been 
smashed to pieces! We were in fact an hour later than the regular 
time — in consequence of a bridge burnt down over the Treut, 
■which occasioned a great roundabout. Besides, the train did not 
behave itself at all like an Express, stopping at a great many places, 
and for long whiles. 

My house was all right; indeed, I never found it as thoroughly 
cleaued, or the general aspect of things as satisfactory. She "is a 
perfect jewel, that young girl; besides all her natural work, she 
had crocheted, out of her own head, a large cover for the drawing- 
room sofa! 

You will be glad to hear that a good situation is found at last for 
James Aitkeu. Carlyle seemed very grateful to you for the care 
you took of me. I told him about that 'close carriage' before we 
had beeu five minutes in the cab together. 

Kindest love to Mary; and remember me to all those girls, visible 
and invisible, ' who are world-like, ' their mother says, ' and have 
their wits.' 
I will write to Mary before long. 

Yours most kindly, 

Jane Cabi/sxe. 

LETTER 200. 

Mrs. Busse.ll, Thornhill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Friday, Oct. 1, 1858. 

Oh, my dear! my dear! Will you ask 'the Doctor' what is the 
reason that, when I travel from London to Scotland I get quite 
fresli to the journey's end, however weakly I may have beeu at 
starting; but when I do the same journey back again, I am tired 
through every fibre of me, and don't get over it for days? I do 
begin to believe London a perfectly poisonous place for me, and to 
•wish that the projected Pimlico Railway may actually tear our 
house up, and turn us adrift in space! Such' a headache I had all 
yesterday! and to-day still I drag myself about with difficulty. 
Really, it is always ' pursuit of life under difficulties ' here. 

I hope your picture arrived, and safely. If it didn't, I will get 
you another. I was too ill with my head to write along with it. In- 
deed I have not succeeded yet in getting my boxes all unpacked. I 
should be doing that ' duty nearest hand,' for the moment, if I were 
a thoroughly well-principled woman — such a woman as Mrs. Priugle, 
for example — instead of sitting here writing to you. But, my dear, 
it is so much pleasanter this; and I miss your kind face and kind 
voice so much, and writing to you is a sort of substitute for seeing 
and hearing you. My little visit to Mary Austin was ver}' pleasant. 
But I was obliged to put on an additional box at the Gill, to hold the 
fresh eggs (!), ' pookit fools,' and other delicacies she loaded me 
with. Then Mr. Carlyle had left an enormous bundle of new 
clothes to come with me — the produce of the indefatigable exertions 
of three tailors, whom he had kept sewing for him' at the Gill for 
four weeks! besides a large package of books. So I made the 
journey with six pieces of luggage, not counting my writing-case, 
travelling-bag, and the beeskep, which last I let nobody carry but 
myself. It arrived in the most perfect state. I told Mr. C. you 
had sent him ' improper female' honey, and I think he is greatly 
charmed with your immoral present. I took out some for immediate 
use: but I thiuk I will not displace the rest. 

When I was stepping into a carriage at the Cummertrees station 
that morning (Wednesday), a horrid sight turned me back. Nothing 
less than the baboon face of our new acquaintance the surgeon! I 
don't know if he recognised me; I dashed into the next carriage, 
and fell amongst an odious party of English tourists. My baboon 
friend and I exchanged glances at the different stations, where he 
expended his superfluous activity in fussing to and fro on the plat- 
form, till finally he left the London train at Lancaster. I wonder 
what impression he left at Lann Hall! 

I find all extremely right here. A perfectly-cleaned house, and 



a little maid, radiant with 'virtue its own reward/ and oh, unex- 
pected joy! a jet-black kitten added to the household! playing with 
the dog as lovingly as your cat with your dog! This acquisition of 
Charlotte's announced itself to me by leaping ou to my back be- 
tween my shoulders. A most agile kitten, and wonderfully confid- 
ing. Charlotte said yesterday, ' I think Scotland must be such a 
fresh, airy place! I should like to go there! You did smell so 
beautiful when you came in at the door last night! ' She is quite a 
jewel of a servant. Far more like au adopted child than a London 
maid-of-all-work. And, upon my word and honour, her bread is a 
deuced deal better than that loaf of Mrs. B 's. 

A kiss to— the Doctor? or Nipp? And do tell Nipp to behave 
better at prayers. 

Mr. C. has sent his book to your husband. It goes in some book- 
seller's parcel, so there may be a little delay. 

[No room to sign] ' J. W. C 



LETTER 201. 

I returned from second German tour. — T. C. 

J. O. Cooke, Esq. 

5 Cheyne Row: Wednesday, October (?) 1858. 
Dear Mr. Cooke, — lam here again— the more's the pity! Once 
for all, this London atmosphere weighs on me, I find, like a hun- 
dredweight of lead. No health, no spirits, one brings from 'the 
country ' can bear up against it. Come and console me, at least 
come and try 'to!'— on Sunday afternoon perhaps. Mr. C. U 
home from his battle-fields, and as busy and private as before. So 
my evenings are now sacred to reading on his part, and mortally 
ennuying to myself on mine. 

Quoth Burgundy, the living 
On earth have much to bear. 1 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane W. Cabltle. 



LETTER 202. 

Mrs. Russell, Thornhill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: November 1, 1858. 
Oh, my dear! I feel so fractious this evening; should like to 
break something, or box somebody's ears! Perhaps it is the east 
wind, perhaps my dinner of only soup, perhaps original sin; what- 
ever it is, I must positively try to come out of it, and the best way 
I can think of to smooth my ' raven down ' is, writing some lines 
to you. Your last letter was charming, dear, just the 6ort of 
letter one wants from a place familiar and deas to one; all about 
everything and everybody. Since I knew Mrs. Ptingle I have 
come to understand and enter into the late Lady Ashburton's ter- 
ror and horror of what she called ' all about feelings.' 

My cousin John (George's son) was here again the other day, 
and I never felt so hopeless about him. His countenance, hU 
voice, manner, everything about him is changed. And yet Bence 
Jones tells him it will be time enough, if he get to a warm climate 
before the spring winds set in. He will never go, I believe, if he 
wait till spring. I am going to Richmond the first possible day to 
talk to his mother. She is the strangest woman — always trying 
to hide her son's danger, as if it were a crime. The fatallest 
symptom I see in him is the sanguineness about his recovery, the 
irritability on the subject of his health, which have taken place of 
the depression he manifested in summer, while his state gives no 
reason for the change of mood; on the contrary, bis cough, and ex- 
pectoration are greatly increased, and so, he owns, are his night- 
perspirations. He is paler and thinner; and, from being the 
shyest, most silent of men, he now talks incessantly, and excitedly, 
and, in this state he goes about doing his usual work, and he left 
here the other day after dusk! I am very grieved about him. He 
is the only cousin I have, that I have had any pride or pleasure in. 
Upou my word, I had better give up writing for this day — noth- 
ing to tell but grievances! Well, here is one little fact that will 
amuse you. Just imagine, the bit of boiled ham, which you would 
hardly let me have, has lasted for my supper, up to last week; and 
I never stinted myself, only I kept it 'all to myself,' like the 
greedy boy of the story book. I began to think it was goiug to 
be a nineteenth century miracle. But it did end at last, and now 
I am fallen back on porridge and milk, which is not so nice. 
don't know about Dr. Couplaud; I fancied him an old man. I 
am curious to know what will become of the Irish tutor. 
Love to the Doctor. 

Yours ever affectionately, 

J. C. 



1 Said Burgundy, ' I'm giving 
Much toil to thee. I fear.' 
Eckart replied, 'The living 
On earth have much to bear.' 
fTieck's Phantasms; the trusty Eckart of my translating Q 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



107 



LETTER 203. 
/. O. Cooke, Esq. 
6 Cheyne Kow, Chelsea: Tuesday, about Dec. 22, 1858. 
Oil, my dear kind friend, what a shock for you! And what a 
lossl The loss of one's mother! You can hardly realise it yet, so 
suddenly and softly it has befallen; but I doubt if there be any 
other loss in life equal to it — so irreplaceable, so all-pervading. 
And the consolation given one, that it is a loss ' in the course of 
nature,' and 'common to all who live long,' only makes it the 
•adder, to my thought. Yes; the longer one lives in this hard 
world motherless, the more a mother's loss makes itself felt, and 
understood, the more tenderly and self-reproachfully one thinks 
back over the time when one had her, and thought so little of it. 
It is sixteen years since my mother died, as unexpectedly; and not 
a day, not an hour has passed since that I have not missed her, 
have not felt the world colder and blanker for want of her. But 
that is no comfort to offer you. 

Come to-morrow; I shall certainly be at home, and shall take 
oare to be alone. I feel very grateful to you, very, for liking to 
come to me at such a time of trouble. 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 204. 

Mrs. Russell, T/tornhill. 

6 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: December 30, 1858. 

Oh, young woman! there you go again! again a long silence! 
And I will tell you how it willbe — your silence will become longer 
and longer, and be of more and more frequent occurrence, till you 
fall out of acquaintance with me again, feel shy, and distrustful with 
me. and speculate about ' not having the accommodation of Lann 
Hall to offer! ' And, oh my dear, who will be to blame for that state 
of things but yourself? Like all very sensitive people, you need 
an atmosphere of the familiar to open the leaves of your soul in. 
The strange, the unaccustomed, blights you like a frosty night; 
end yet, by procrastination, which your copy-lines told you was 
'the root of all evil,' you suffer the familiar to become, by little 
and little, that 'strange,' which has such withering effects on 
you. Please don't, not in my case, for Heaven's sake! The more 
you don't write to me, the more you will find it uphill work when 
you do write, and from that, to speaking about 'the accommoda- 
tion of Lann Hall,' is but a step or two in a straight line. You 
write such nice letters when your hand is in. that the}' cannot be a 
labour to write. Then do, my dear, keep your hand in. 

Meanwhile, I have sent you a New Year's gift, which, if it 
come to hand safe, will, I am sure, at least I hope, give you a 
pleasant surprise; for really it will be like seeing into our interior 
in a peep-show. It is the only one, of the size that exists as yet, 
End I had it done on purpose for you. Another, smaller, is gone, 
inside of a large picture-book for Mrs. Pringle's children, to Robert 
MacTurk, a sort of amende honorable for having failed to give him 
rcyself — Good God! when he had some right, to expect it — long 
*go, when I was an extremely absurd little girl. His good feeling 
towards me, after all, deserves a certain esteem from me, and a 
certain recognition, which, I hope, has been put into an acceptable 
form for him in the peep-show! 

But I must not be expatiating over things in general to-day; for 
I am in a dreadful hurry, a great many letters to be written, be- 
sides that it is my day for driving out in what our livery-stable 
keepers call a neat fly, viz., a second-hand brougham with one 
horse — an expensive luxury, which Mr. C. forces on me twice a 
week 'now that I am old and frail, and have a right to a little in- 
dulgence,' he says. 

The fact is, I have been belated in my letters, and everything, 
this week, by having had to give from two to three hours every 
day to a man who has unexpectedly lost his mother. He has five 
sisters here, 1 and female friends world without end — is, in fact, of 
all men I know, the most popular; and such is relationship and 
friendship in London, that he has fled away from everybody to 
me, who wasn't aware before that I was his particular friend the 
least in the world. But I have always had the same sort of attrac- 
tion for miserable people and for mad people that amber has for 
straws. Why or how, I have no idea. 

Mrs. Pringle wrote me a long really nice letter, in answer to my 
acknowledgment of the intimation of her uncle's death. She is a 
clever woman (as the Doctor says), and has discovered now, no 
doubt, that the style which suits me best is the natural and simple 
style, and that my soul cannot be thrown into deliquium, by any 
hundred horse power of upholstery or of moral sublime. She is 
nice as she is. 

I will get the money order for'the poor women, in passing the 
post-office, and inclose it for your kind offices. Kindest regards to 
the Doctor, for whom I have a new story about Locock. God 
keep you both, for me, and so many that need you. 

Yours, 

J. W. Carlyle. 

1 Can't remember him (J. G. Cooke?). 



LETTER 205. 

Miss Barnes, a very pretty, amiable, modest, and clever young 
lady, was the Doctor's one daughter; is now Mrs. Simmouds, of 
this neighbourhood (wife of a rising barrister), and was always a 
great favourite with my darling. — T. C. 

Miss Barnes, King's Road, Chelsea. 

5 Cheyne Row: Monday, June 1859. 

Dear Miss Barnes, — Your father left a message for me this morn- 
ing, the answer to which I expected him to ' come and take ' when 
he had done with our next-door neighbour. But blessed are they 
who expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed. 

Pray come to tea with me to-morrow evening at seven, if my 
husband's particular friends 'the Destinies,' alias 'the Upper Pow- 
ers,' alias ' the Immortal Gods' (your father says you read Mr. C, 
so you will understand me), don't interfere to keep you away. 

I will drop this at your door in passing for my drive, and, along 
with it, a piece of old, old German crockery, which had the hon- 
our to catch your father's eye and has set its heart on belonging to 
him. So don't let it get broken — till he have seen it at least. 

All you know of me as yet is that I seem to be in the very low- 
est state as to penmanship. But I assure 3'ou I can write much 
more tidily than this, made with the hack of the very worst pen in 
the created world ! 

And if you will bring with you to-morrow evening whatever 
stock you may have of ' faith, hope, and charity,' I have no doubt 
but we shall become good friends. 

Yours truly, 

Jane Welsh Carlylb. 

LETTER 206. 

This year 1859 it was resolved, for (he hot weather, that 'Fred- 
erick ' should be thrown aside, and Fife and the North be our ref- 
uge for a month or two. We had secured a tolerable upper floor 
iu the farmhouse of Humbie, close by pleasant Aberdour; we had 
great need, especially she had, of all the good it could do us. I 
went by steamer with clever little Charlotte, my horse, and Nero; 
remember somewhat of the dreariness, the mean confusion, ennui; 
got at last to Granton, where brother John from Edinburgh joined 
me to accompany across the Frith. Our first talk was of poor Isa- 
bella of Scotsbrig, 1 who had died a few weeks before, a permanent 
loss to all of us. 

My own Jeannie, frail exceedingly, had gone by rail to Hadding- 
ton; in a few days more she joined Charlotte and me at Humbie; 
for a month after that at ' Auchtertool House ' (a big, goodish 
house, rather in disrepair, for which no special rent, only some vol- 
untary for such politeness, could be accepted), for above a month 
more. 

Fife was profoundly interesting to me, but also (unexpectedly), 
sad, dreary, troublesome, lonely, peopled only by the ghosts of 
the past. My poor darling in Humbie Wood with me; weak, 
weak! could not walk, durst not (really durst nol) sit on the loyal 
willing Fritz, with me leading; got her a cuddy (donkey) from 
Dumfries (none to be heard of in Fife), but that also was but half 
successful. She did improve a little; was visibly better when I 
rejoined her at home. For m}'self I had ridden fiercely (generally 
in tragic humour), walked ditto late in the woods at night, &c, 
bathed, &c, hoping still to recover myself by force in that way, 
'more like a man of sixteen than of sixty-four,' as I ofien heard 
it said by an ever-loving voice! It was the last, time I tried the boy 
method. Final Fife (particulars not worth giving) had a certain 
gloomy beauty to me — strange, grand, sad as the grave!— T. C. 

,7. 6. Cooke, Esq., Mount. Street, W. 

Humbie, Aberdour, Fife: Saturday. 

My dear Friend, —I was very glad of your letter, not only be- 
cause it was a letter from you, but a sign that you had forgiven me 
— or. still better — that you had never been offended! I assure you, 
an hour or two later, when left alone and quiet in the railway car- 
riage, I wondered, as much as you could do, what demon inspired 
the tasteless jest with which I bade you goodbye! in presence too, 
of the most gossiping and romancing of all our mutual acquaint- 
ances! I was so tired that day! Oh my heavens! so tired! And 
fatigue, which makes an healthy human being sleepy, makes me, 
in my present nervous state, delirious. That is my excuse — the 
only one I have to make, at least — for the foolish words I took 
leave of you with. 

Mrs. Hawkes will have told you that I arrived safe, and that I 
am quite content with the 'Farmhouse.' It commands the beauti- 
fullest view in the world, and abundance of what Mr. C. calls 'soft 
food ' (new milk, fresh eggs, whey, &c). The people are obliging; 
and the lodging very clean. Mr. C. bathes in the sea every morn- 
ing, lyrically recognises the 'pure air,' and the 'soft food;' and, 
if not essentially in better health, is in what is almost as good — that 
make-the-best-of-everything state, which men get into when carry- 
ing out their own idea; and only then! 



1 Mrs. James Carlyle. 



108 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



Charlotte 1 is the happiest of girls! not that she seems to have 
much sensibility for the ' Beauties of Nature,' nor that her health 
was susceptible of improvement, but that the ' kindness of Scotch 
people ' fills her with wonder and delight. ' Young men that don't 
so much as know her name, passing her on the road, say to her, 
Bonnie wee lassie!' And the farmer here gave her ' a little sugar 
rabbit,' and said to her 'Little girl, you are growing quite pretty 
since you came.' Did I ever hear of such kind people? The 
horse also likes ' the change. ' Mr. C. says ' he is a much improved 
horse; is in perfect raptures over his soft food (grass and new hay) 
but incapable ot recovering from his astonishment at the badness 
of the Fife roads! ' Nero bathes with his master from a sense of 
duty; and is gradually shaking off the selfish torpor that had seized 
upon him in London : he snores less, thinks of other things besides his 
food; and shows some of his old fondness forme. M}'self is the indi- 
vidual of the party who has derived least benefit hitherto from the 
place and its advantages. Indeed, I am weaker than before I left 
home. But great expectations are entertained from — an ass (cuddy 
they call it here!) which arrived for me from Dumfriesshire last 
night. My own choice of animal to ride upon! Mr. C. mounted 
me twice on the enraptured and astonished horse. But a cuddy 
will suit better; as Betty remarked when she was here, 'its fine 
and near the grund, dear. It'll no be far to fa' ! ' The farmer 
says, 'I hope it'll gang! Them creturs is sometimes uncommon 
fond to stand still! ' I am just going to try it. Geraldine sent me 
a note that looked like being written on a ship in a storm at sea. 
Such scrawling and blotting I never beheld, and the sense to 
match! If Mr. Mantel makes his way here, we shall give him a 
friendly welcome ; but it is a much more laborious affair than from 
London to Richmond. 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane W Carlyle. 

LETTER 207. 
Miss Barnes, King's Road, Chelsea. 

Auchtertool House, Kirkcaldy; Aug. 24, 1859. 

My dear Miss Barnes, — How nice of you to have written me a 
letter, 'all out of your own head' (as the children say), and how 
very nice of you to have remarked the forget-me-not, and read a 
meaning in it! It wns certainly with intention I tied up some for- 
get-me -nots along with my farewell roses; but I was far from sure 
of your recognising the intention, and at the same time not young 
enough to make it plainer. Sentiment, you see, is not well looked 
on by the present generation of women; there is a growing taste 
for fastness, or, still worse, for strong-mindedness! so a discreet 
woman (like me) will beware always of putting her sentiment 
(when she has any) in evidence — will rather leave it — as in the for- 
get-me-not case — to be divined through sympathy; and failing the 
Sympathy, to escape notice. 

And you are actually going to get married! you! already! And 
you expect me to congratulate you! or 'perhaps not.' I admire 
the judiciousness of that 'perhaps not.' Frankly, my dear, I wish 
you all happiness in the new life that is opening to you; and you 
are marrying under good auspices, since your father approves of 
the marriage. But congratulation on such occasions seems to me 
a tempting of Providence. The triumphal-procession-air which. 
in our manners and customs, is given to marriage at the outset — 
that singing of Te Dcum before the battle has begun — has, ever 
since I could reflect, struck me as somewhat senseless and some- 
what impious. If ever one is to pray — if ever one is to feel grave 
and anxious — if ever one is to shrink from vain show and vain 
babble — surely it is just on the occasion of two human beings 
binding themselves to one another, for better and for worse, till 
death part them; just on that occasion which it is customary to 
celebrate only with rejoicings, and congratulations, and trousseaux, 
and white ribbon! Good God! 

Will you think me mad if I tell you that when I read your 
words, ' I am going to be married.' I all but screamed? Positively, 
it took away my breath, as if I saw you in the act of taking a fly- 
ing leap into infinite space. You had looked to me such a happy, 
happy little girl! your father's only daughter; and he so fond of 
you, as he evidently was. After you had walked out of our house 
together that night, and I had gone up to my own room, I sat 
down there in the dark, and took 'a good cry.' You had re- 
minded me so vividly of my own youth, when I, also an only 
daughter — an only child — had a father as fond of me. as proud of 
me. I wondered if you knew your own happiness. Well! know- 
ing it or not, it has not been enough for you, it would seem. Nat- 
urally, youth is so insatiable of happiness, and has such sublimely 
insane faith in its own power to make happy and be happy. 

But of your father? Who is to cheer his toilsome life, and make 
home bright for him? His companion through half a lifetime 
gone! his dear 'bit of rubbish' gone too, though in a different 
sense. Oh, little girl! little girl! do you know the blank you will 
make to him? 

Now, upon my honour. I seem to be writing just such a letter as 
a raven might write if it had been taught. Perhaps the henbane I 

1 Mrs. Carlyle's maid. 



took in despair last night has something to do with my mood to- 
day. Anyhow, when one can only ray out darkness, one had best 
clap an extinguisher on oneself. And so God bless you! 

Sincerely yours, 

Jane W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 208. 
To George Cooke, Esq. 

Auchtertool House, Kirkcaldy; Friday. 
I am not at the manse, but within a quarter of an hour's walk of 
it, in a large comfortable house lent us by a Mr. Liddell; and we 
should have done well here had not Mr. C. walked and rode and 
bathed himself into a bilious crisis just before leaving Humbie; 
so that he began life under the most untoward auspices. For the 
first fortnight, indeed, it was, so far as myself was concerned, more 
like being keeper in a madhouse than being 'in the country ' for 
'quiet and change.' Things are a little subsided now, however, 
and in spite of the wear and tear on my nerves, I am certainly less 
languid and weak than during all my stay in the farmhouse. 
Whether it be that the air of Auchtertool suits me better than that 
of Aberdour, or that having my kind little cousins within cry is a 
wholesome diversion, or that it required a continuance of country 
air to act upon my feebleness, I am not competent to say, nor is it 
of the slightest earthly consequence what the cause is, so that the 
effect has been as I tell you. 

LETTER 209. 
T. Carlyle, The Gill, Annan. 

York, Sea win's Hotel; Thursday, Sept. 22, 1859. 

There! I have done it! You prophesied my heart would fail me 
when it came to the point, and I would 'just rush straight on 
again to the end.' But my heart didn't fail me, 'or rather' (to 
speak like Dr. Carlyle) it did fail me horribly! but my memory 
held true, and kept me up to the mark. With the recollection of 
the agonies of tiredness I suffered on the journey down, and for 
many days after, still tingling through my nerves, I took no coun- 
sel with my heart, but kept determined to not expose myself to 
that [again, whatever else (bugs inclusive). And, so far, I have 
reason to congratulate myself; for I was getting ' quite' done up 
by the time we reached York, and I am now very comfortable in 
my inn, with prospects for the night not bad! If only there be no 
'small beings' (as Mazzini prettily styles them) in the elegant 
green-curtained bed of number 44, Scawin's. 

I am sitting writing in that number, by the side of a bright little 
fire; which I ordered to be lighted, the first thing, on my arrival. 
While it was burning up, I went down and bad tea in the ' ladies' 
coffee-room,' where was no fire, but also no ladies! They brought 
me very nice tea and muffins, and I 'asked for' cream! ! and for 
an egg! ! ! 'And it was all very comfortable! ' I think I shall 
order some supper wdien the time comes; but I haven't been able 
to decide what yet. There isn't a sound in the house, nor in the 
back court that my windows look out on. It is hardly to be hoped 
such quiet can last. Trains will come in during the night, and I 
shall hear them, anyhow; fortius hotel, though not the Railway 
Station Hotel, is just outside the station gate. It was Eliza Liddell 
who recommended it to me. I never was in an inn, all by myself, 
before; except one night years ago, in the ' George ' at Haddington, 
which was not exactly an inn to me; and I like the feeling of it 
unexpectedly well! The freedom at once from 'living's cares, 
that is cares of bread,' the pride of being one's own mistress and 
own protector, all that lifts me into a certain exaltation, 'regard- 
less of expense.' And now I am going to ring my bell, and order a 
pair of candles! 

Candles come! a pair of composite — not wax, 'thanks God!' I 
shall breakfast here in peace and quietness to-morrow morning; 
and leave by a train that starts at ten, and reaches London at four; 
and shall so avoid night air, which would not suit me at present. 
It has grown very cold, within the last two weeks; and I was as 
near catching a regular bad cold as ever I was in my life without 
doing it! The habit I took of waking at four at Auchtertool con- 
tinued at Morningside, where there was much disturbance from 
carts 'going to thelime.' The morning I left was chill and damp; 
and I rose at six, tired of lying still, and dawdled about my room, 
packing, till I took what Anne used to call ' the cold shivers.' 
Mrs. Biunie's warm welcome and warm dinner failed to warm me; 
which was a pity; for Mrs. Godby had arrived and the short visit 
would have been extremely pleasant, but for my chill. My tongue 
and throat became very sore, towards night. Next day I felt quite 
desperate; but Mrs. Godby gave me a stiff tumbler of brandy toddy, 
in the forenoon, before I started; and her brother sent me, in his 
carriage, straight to Sunny Bank, so as to avoid the cold waiting 
at Long Niddry, and the other risks of the train; and on arriving 
at Sunny Bank, I swallowed two glasses of wine, and then, at bed- 
time, a 'stiff tumbler of whisky toddy!!! and so on, for the next 
two days fairly battling down the cold with ' stimulants.' I think 
I shall escape now, if 1 take reasonable care. Pity there should be 
' always a something '! But for this apprehension of an overhang- 
ing illness and these horrid 'cold shivers,' I should have enjoyed 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



109 



my last visit to Sunny Bank so much. They were so much better — 
the house so much cheerfuller with Eliza there, and so many people 
came to see me that I liked to see. Even when I left, this morn- 
ing, I did not despair of seeing them again! ' 

Surely you will never be so rude to that good-humoured Lady 
Stanley as to fling her over after all. Besides, Alderley would make 
80 good a resting-place for you on the long journey. I hope to get 
things into their natural condition before you arrive. 

Ever yours, 

J. W. C. 

Love to Mary. I hope she liked her picture. You never saw 
such a pen as I am writing with! 

LETTER 210. 
T. Carlyle, Scotsbrig. 
5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Monday, Sept. 26, 1859. 

Two letters to be forwarded, or catch me having put pen to 
paper this day, I am so tired, Oh my! I never! A good sleep 
would have put me to rights, but that hasn't come yet. In spite of 
the stillness, and* the good bed, and the all-my-own-way, I do noth- 
ing but fall asleep, and start up, and light matches, till four 
o'clock strikes, and after that I lie awake, wishing it were break- 
fast-time. What a wise woman I was to come home by myself, 
and get my fatigues done out before you arrived. I am not going 
out to-day, nor was I out yesterday, but on Saturday afternoon I 
trailed myself to Silvester's, and saw the horse — 'just come in from 
being exercised,' ' in capital condition,' 'so fat!' Silvester said, 

clapping its buttock, ' and so spirity that he never ! ' The stable 

seemed good and very clean. I think them most respectable people. 
And the distance is less than to 's. 2 

If you could conveniently bring a small bag of meal with 
you from Scotsbrig, it would be welcome; we have none but 
some Fife meal, which is very inferior to the Annandale. At all 
events, you could ask Jamie to send us a few stone, say four, and if 
Mary would give us a little jar of butter, like what she sent with 
me last year, it ' wud be a great advantage.' 3 

I find everything in the house perfectly safe — no bugs, no moths, 
grates unrusted, much more care having been taken than when 
Anne was left in it, with wages, and board wages, at least in the 
last years of Anne's incumbency. Mrs. Southern is an excellent 
woman, I do believe, and Charlotte is already the better for being 
back beside her — away from Thomson's and Muat's. 4 

Ever yours, 

J. W. C. 
LETTER 211. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., at Alderley Park, Congleton. 

5 Cheyne Row. Chelsea: Thursday, Sept. 39, f859. 

Thanks! Just one line, that you may not be fancying me past 
writing. But there is no time for a letter. I am shocked to find 
how late it is. I fell to putting down the clean drugget, in the 
drawing-room, ' with my own hands,' 5 that you might not on your 
first arrival receive the same impression of profound gloom 
from the dark green carpet, that drove myself towards thoughts of 
suicide! And, behold, the seams had given way in many places at 
the washing; and I have had to sit on the floor like a tailor, stitch- 
ing, stitching, and so the time passed away unremarked, and it now 
is long past my dinner-time, and no dinner so much as thought of, 
in spite of Charlotte's repeated questions. 

I will put myself in an omnibus, and go up to Michel's in Sloane 
Street, and dine on a plate of soup. Woman wants but little here 
below — after a railway journey from Scotland especially. 

I am glad you have gone to Alderley. I have slept a degree bet- 
ter the last two nights; but have still much to make up in that way. 
Don't hurry on, if you do well at the Stanleys'. Kind regards to 
the lady. 

Yours ever, 

J. W. C. 
LETTER 212. 

' Butcher's cart passed over Nero's throat. ' Poor little foolish 
faithful dog! it killed him after all; was never well again. He 
died in some four mouths (Feb. 1, 1860, as the little tablet said, 
while visible) with a degree of pitying sorrow even from me, which 
I am still surprised at. 

The wreck of poor Nero, who had to be strychnined by the doc- 
tor, was, and is still, memorable, sad and miserable to me, the last 
nocturnal walk he took with me, his dim white little figure in the 
universe of dreary black, and my then mood about 'Frederick' 
and other things. 

Holmhill is half a mile from the village of Thornhill. Dr. Rus- 
sell withdrawing from regular business there. — T C. 

1 Never did, alas! 

> The arsenic place! My poor 'Fritz ' had heen suddenly taken to Salter's, 
Eaton Square, and for a year or more had been quite coming round then. 

3 Good East Lothian woman's speech to me, on the return from Dunbar and 
♦he plagues of Irishry, &c. &c. (.? seventeen years ago): ' If the wund would 
fa', it wud be,' &c. 

* Names merely— unknown. 

6 ' Signed it, with my own hand ' (Edward Irving, forty years ago). 



Mrs. Russell, Thornhill. 



5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Wednesday, October 30, 1859. 

Dearest Mary, — 'If you but knew how I have been situated!' 
(my husband's favourite phrase). First, I arrived so tired! oh so 
dead tired! Notwithstanding that, I actually summoned nerve to 
put in effect my often cherished idea of sleeping at York (half- way) 
alone in an inn. Odd that I should never, at this age, have done 
that thing before, in my life, except once, when, alter an absence 
of eighteen years, I spent a night incognita in the George Inn of 
Haddington, where I could not feel myself a mere traveller. It 
was a proof that my nerves were stronger, if not my limbs, that I 
really carried out the York speculation, when it came to the point. 
It would certainly have been again a failure, however, but for a 
lady in Fife telling me of a comfortable inn to stop at. I was to 
ask, on getting out of the carriage, 'was any porter from Mrs. Sea- 
win's here? ' which I had no sooner done, than the name Scawin 
was shouted out in the sound of ' Sowens! ' to my great shame! I 
feeling as if everybody knew where I was going, and that it was 
my first adventure of the sort! ! But I was comfortably and quietly 
lodged; no bugs, no anything to molest me, only that the tumult 
in my own blood kept me awake all night; so that I arrived here 
as tired, next evening, as if I had come the whole road at one 
horrid rush. And 1 hadn't much time allowed me to rest; for, 
though Charlotte had got down all the carpets, there were still 
quantities of details for me to do, before Mr. C. came. And he 
stayed only a week behind me. 

When the house was all in order for him, my cares were destined 
to take another turn, even more engrossing. Just the night before 
his arrival, Charlotte went to some shops, taking the dog with her, 
and brought him home in her arms, all crumpled together like a 
crushed spider, and his poor little eyes, protruding, and fixedly star- 
ing in his head! A butcher's cart, driving furiously round a 
sharp corner, had passed over poor little Nero's throat! and not 
killed him on the spot! But he looked killed enough at the first. 
When I tried to 'stand him on the ground ' (as the servants here 
say), he flopped over on his side, quite stiff and unconscious! You 
may figure my sensations! and I durst not show all my grief; 
Charlotte was so distressed, and really could not have helped it! I 
put him in a warm bath, and afterwards wrapped him warmly, and 
laid him on a pillow, and left him, without much hope of finding 
him alive in the morning. But in the morning he still breathed, 
though incapable of any movement; but he swallowed some warm 
milk that I put into his mouth. About midday I was saying aloud, 
' Poor dog! poor little Nero! ' when I „aw the bit tail trying to wag 
itself! and after that, I had good hopes. In another day he could 
raise his head to lap the milk himself. And so, by little and little, 
he recovered the use of himself: but it was ten days before he was 
able to raise a bark, his first attempt was like the scream of an 
infant! It has been a revelation to me, this, of the strength of the 
tli mat of a dog! ! Mr. C. says, if the wheel had gone over any- 
where else, it would have killed him. A gentleman told me the 
other night that he once saw a fine large dog run over; the great 
wheel of one of Pickford's heavy -laden vans went over its throat! ! 
And the dog just rose up and shook itself!! It next staggered a 
little to one side, and then a little to the other, as if drunk, then it 
steadied itself, and walked composedly home! 

When I was out of trouble with my dog, I had time to feel how 
very relaxing and depressing the air of Chelsea was for me, as 
usual, after the bracing climate of Scotland. I was perfectly done, 
till Mr. C. insisted on setting up the carriage again, and Providence 
put me on drinking water out of a 'bitter cup;' that is a new in- 
vention, very popular here this year! — a cup made of the wood of 
quassia, which makes the water quite bitter in a minute: of course, 
a chip of quassia put into water would have the same effect; but 
nobody ever bid me take that! I thought, for three or four days, 
that I had discovered the grand panacea of life! I felt so hungry 1 
and so cheerful! ! and so active! But one night I was seized with 
the horridest cramps! which quite took the shine out of quassia for 
me, though I daresay it was merely that I had quite neglected my 
bowels. I haven't had courage to re-commence with the ' bitter 
cup;' but it will come! Meanwhile I am pretty well over the 
bilious crisis that has befallen, to ' remind me that I am but a 
woman! ' and a very frail one (I mean in a physical sense)! 

How pleasant it will be to think of you at that pretty Holmhill! 
though one will always have a tender feeling towards the 'old 
rambling house,' where we have had such good days together. 
But the other place will be for the good of your health, as well as 
more agreeable, when you have once got over the pain of change, 
which is painful to good hearts, though it may be joyful enough to 
light ones. It will also be a comfort to my mind to think of that 
drawing-room getting papered all with one sort of paper! 

God bless you. Love to your husband. 

J. W. Carlylb. 

LETTER 213. 

To Mrs. Stirling. Hill Street, Edinburgh. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: October 21, 1859. 
You dear nice woman! there you are! a bright cheering appari- 
tion to surprise one on a foggy October morning, over one's break- 



110 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



fast — that most trying institution for people who are ' nervous' and 
' don't sleep!' 

It (the photograph) made our breakfast this morning 'pass off,' 
like the better sorts of breakfasts in Deerbrook, 1 in which people 
6eemed to have come into the world chiefly to eat breakfast in 
every possible variety of temper! 

Blessed be the inventor of photography! I set him above even 
the inventor of chloroform! It has given more positive pleasure 
to poor suffering humanity than anything that has ' cast'' up ' in 
my time or is like to — this art by which even the 'poor' can pos- 
sess themselves of tolerable likenesses of their absent dear ones. 
And mustn't it be acting favourably on the morality of the country? 
I assure I have often gone into my own room, in the devil's own 
humour — ready to swear at ' things in general,' and some things iu 
particular — and, my eyes resting by chance on one of my photo- 
graphs of long-ago places or people, a crowd of sad, gentle thoughts 
has rushed into my heart, and driven the devil out, as clean as ever 
so much ho]} r water and priestly exorcisms could have done! I 
have a photograph of Haddington church tower, and my father's 
tombstoue in it — of every place I ever lived at as a home — photo- 
graphs of old lovers! old friends, old servants, old dogs! In a day 
or two, you, dear, will be framed and hung up among the ' friends.' 
And that bright, kind, indomitable face of yours will not be the 
least efficacious face there for exorcising my devil, when I have 
him! Thank you a thousand times for keeping your word! Of 
course you would — that is just the beaut}' of you, that you never 
deceive nor disappoint. 

Oil my dear! my dear! how awfully tired I was with the journey 
• home, and yet I had taken two days to it, sleeping — that is, 
attempting to sleep — at York. What a pity it is that Scotland is 
60 far off! all the good one has gained there gets shaken off one in 
the terrific journey home again, and then the different atmosphere 
is so trying to one fresh from the pure air of Fife — so exhausting 
and depressing. If it hadn't been that I had a deal of house- 
maiding to execute during the week I was here before Mr. C. 
returned, I must have given occasion for newspaper paragraphs 
under the head of 'Melancholy suicide.' But dusting books, 
making chair-covers, and 'all that sort of thing,' leads one on 
insensibly to live — til! the crisis gets safely passed. 

My dear! I haven't time nor inclination for much letter-writing 
— nor have you, I should suppose, but do let us exchange letters 
now and then. A friendship which has lived on air for so many 
years together is worth the trouble of giving it a little human sus- 
tenance. 

Give my kind regards to your husband — 1 like him. — And believe 
me, 

Your ever affectionate. 

Jane Welsh: Carlyi.e. 

LETTER 214. 

In October, after getting home, there was a determined onslaught 
made on 'Frederick,' an attempt (still in the way of youth — 16 
rather than 60!) to vanquish by sheer force the immense masses of 
incondite or semi-condite rubbish which had accumulated on ' Fred- 
erick,' that is, to let the printer straightway drive me through it! — 
a most, fond and foolish notion, which indeed I myself partly knew, 
durst I have confessed it, to be foolish and even impossible! But 
this was the case all along; I never once said to myself, 'All those 
chaotic mountains, wide as the world, high as the stars, dismal as 
Lethe, Styx, and Phlegethon, did mortal ever see the like of it for 
size aud for quality in the rubbish way? All this thou wilt have to 
take into thee, to roast and smelt in the furnace of thy own poor 
soul till thou fairly do smelt the grains of gold out of it!' No. 
though dimly knowing all this, I durst not openly know it (indeed, 
how could I otherwise ever have undertaken such a subject?); and 
I had got far on with the unutterable enterprise, before I did clearly 
admit that such was verily proving, and would, on to the finis, 
prove to have been the terrible part of this affair, affair which I 
must now conquer tale quale, or else perish! This first attempt of 
October-February, 1859-1860 (after dreadful tugging at the straps), 
was given up by her serious advices, which I could not but admit 
to be true as well as painful and humiliating! November 1860 had 
arrived before there was any further printing: nothing thenceforth 
but silent pulling at a dead lift, which lasted four or five years 
more. 

My darling must have suffered much in all this; how much! I 
sometimes thought how cruel it was on her, to whom 'Frederick' 
was literally nothing except through me, so cruel, alas, alas, and 
yet inevitable! Never once in her deepest misery did she hint, by 
word or sign, what she too was suffering under that score; me only 
did she ever seem to pity in it, the heroic, the thrice noble, and 
wholly loving soul ! 

She seemed generally a little stronger this year, and only a little; 
her strength, though blind / never saw it, and kept hoping, hoping. 
was never to come back, but the reverse, the reverse more and 
more! Except a week or two at the Grange (January 1860), which 
did not hurt either of us, I think we had intended to make no vis- 

1 The Deerbrook breakfasts refer to Miss Martineau'B poor novel. 
"Turned. 



its this year, or as good as none. We did, however, and for good 
reasons, make two — hers, a most unlucky or provoking one, pro- 
vokiugly curtailed and frustrated, as will be seen. This was in 
August, to Alderley, and she could have gone further but for blind 
ill luck. Beginning of July she had tried a week or thereby of 
lodging at Brighton, and invited me, who tried for three days, but 
could get no sleep for noises, and had to hurry home by myself; 
where also I could not sleep nor stay to any purpose, and was 
chiefly by brother John, who accompanied, led by sea to Thurso, 
for a ' long sail ' first of all. 

To Mrs. Russell, Thornhill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Friday, Jan. 28, 1860. 

Dearest Mary, — A letter from me would have crossed 3'ours (with 
the book) on the road, if it hadn't been for a jacket! Things are 
so oddly hooked together in this world. The connection in this 
case is simple enough. I needed a little jacket forborne wear, and, 
possessing a superfluous black silk scarf, I resolved, in a moment 
of economical enthusiasm, to make with my own hands a jacket out 
of it. For, in spite of the ' thirty thousand distressed needlewomen ' 
one hears so much of, the fact remains that nobody can get a de- 
cent article of dress made here, unless at enormous cost. And be- 
sides, the dressmakers who can fit one won't condescend to make 
anything but with their own materials. So I fell to cutting out 
that jacket last Monday, and only finished it today (Friday)! and 
was so much excited over the unusual nature of the enterprise (for 
I detest sewing, and don't sew for weeks together) that I could not 
leave off, for anything that could be postponed, till the jacket was 
out of hands. But Lord preserve me, what a bother; better to have 
bought one ready-made at the dearest rate. I won't take a needle 
in my hands, except to sew on Mr. C.'s buttons, for the next six 
moutiis. By the way, would you like the shape of my jacket, which 
is of the newest? I have it on paper, and could send it to you quite 
handy. 

Oh my dear. I am very much afraid, the reading of that book 
will be an even more uncongenial job of work for me than the 
jacket, and won't have as much to show for itself when done. If 
there be one thing I dislike more than theology it is geology. And 
here we have both, beaten up in the same mortar, and incapable, by 
any amount of beating, to coalesce. What could induce any live 
woman to fall awriting that sort of book? And a decidedly clever 
woman — I can see that much from the little I have already read of 
it here and there. She expresses her meaning very clearly and ele- 
gantly too. If it were only on any subject I could get up an inter- 
est in, I should read her writing with pleasure. But even when 
Darwin, in a book that all the scientific world is in ecstasy over, 
proved the other day that we are all come from shell-fish, it didn't 
move me to the slightest curiosity whether we are or not. I did 
not feel that the slightest light would be thrown on my practical 
life for me, by having it ever so logically made out that my first 
ancestor, millions of millions of ages back, had been, or even had 
not been, an oyster. It remained a plain fact that I was no oyster, 
nor had any grandfather an oyster within my knowledge; and for 
the rest, there was nothing to be gained, for this world, or the next, 
by going into the oyster- question, till all more pressing questions 
were exhausted! So — if I can't read Darwin, it may be feared I 
shall break down in Sirs. Duncan. Thanks to you. however, for 
the book, which will be welcome to several of my acquaintances. 
There is quite a mania for geology at present, in the female mind. 
My next-door neighbour would prefer a book like Mrs. Duncan's to 
Homer's ' Iliad ' or Milton's ' Paradise Lost.' ' There is no account- 
ing for tastes.' 

I have done my visit to the Grange,' and got no hurt by it; and 
it was quite pleasant while it lasted. The weather was mild, and 
besides, the house is so completely warmed, with warm water-pipes, 
that it is like summer there in the coldest weather. The house was 
choke-full of visitors — four-and-twenty of us, most of the time. 
And the toilettes! Nothing could exceed their magnificence; for 
there were four young new-married ladies, among the rest, all vie- 
ing with each other who to be finest. The blaze of diamonds every 
day at dinner, quite took the shine out of the chandeliers. As for 
myself, I got through the dressing-part of the business by a sort of 
continuous miracle, and, after the first da}', had no bother with my- 
self of any sort. The new Lady 8 was kindness' self and gave gen- 
eral satisfaction. Affectionately yours, 

Jane Carlylb. 

LETTER 215. 
To Miss Barnes, King's Road, Chelsea. 

5 Cheyne Row: Saturday, Jan. 14, 1860. 
My dear Miss Barnes, — I send you a pheasant, which is a trophy 
as well as a dead bird! For I brought it home with me last night 
from one of the most stupendous massacres of feathered innocents 
that ever took place ' here down ' (as Mazzini expresses himself) — 
from seven hundred to a thousand pheasants shot in one dayl 
The firing made me perfectly sick. Think of the bodily and men- 



1 Finished January 13. 

* Lord Ashburton married secondly, November 17. 1858, Louisa Caroline, 
youngest daughter of the Right Hon. James Stewart Mackenzie. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



Ill 



tal state of the surviving birds when the day's sport was ended! 
Decnledly, men can he very great brutes when they like! 

We have been away for ten days hi the Grange (Lord Ashbur- 
ton's place in Hampshire), where I always thrive better than any- 
where else; aud where, as you see, there are many pheasants. 

I went to take leave of you before we went; but saw all the blinds 
down, and grew sick with fright! I went into Mr. Gigner's shop 
and inquired was anything the matter; and he told me of your new 
loss. At least, it was an immense relief to me to hear that your 
father and yourself were not ill or worse. After that I thought a 
note about my insignificant movements would only bother your 
father; so I left him to learn my whereabouts from the 'Morning 
Post,' certain he would be too much preoccupied for looking after 
me at all. Do come soon, if I don't go to you. Do you care to 
have this card? It will do for an autograph if you don't want to 
use it. 

Affectionately yours, 

J. Carlyle. 

LETTER 216. 

To Mr. Barnes, King's Road, Chelsea. 

6 Cheyne Row: Thursday night, Feb. 1 [Nero died]. 

My dear good Mr. Barnes, — I cannot put into words how much 
I feel your kindness. It was such a kind thing for you to do! and 
so kindly done! My gratitude to you will be as long as my life, 
for shall I not, as long as I live, remember that poor little dog? 
Oh don't think me absurd, you, foi caring so much about a dog? 
Nobody but myself can have any idea what that little creature has 
been in my life. My inseparable companion during eleven years, 
ever doing his little best to keep me from feeling sad and lonely. 
Docile, affectionate, loyal up to his last hour. When weak aud 
full of pain, he offered himself to go out with me, seeing my bon- 
net on; and came panting to welcome me on my return, and the 
reward I gave him — the only reward I could or ought to give him, 
to such a pass had things come — was, ten minutes after, to give him 
up to be poisoned. 

I thought it not unlikely you would call to-day; because your 
coming to-day would he of a piece with the rest of your goodness 
to me. Nevertheless, I went out for a long drive; I could not 
bear myself in the house where everything I looked at reminded 
me of yesterday. And I wouldn't be at home for visitors to criti- 
cise my swollen eyes, and smile at grief ' about a dog,' and besides, 
suppose you came, I wished to not treat you to more tears; of 
which you had had too much; and today I couldn't for my life 
have seen you without crying dreadfully. 

Tell your little jewel of a daughter I have not forgotten her 
wish, for which I thank her. I wish all her wishes were as easy to 
fulfil. 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane Welsh Cablyle. 

LETTER 217. 
To John Forster, Esq. , Montagu Square. 

5 Cheyne Bow: Thursday, Jan. 1860 ? or March ? 

All right, dear Mr. Forster — nothing but ' yeses ' out of that 
man's mouth, when your proposal was stated to him. Willing, 
pleased yeses. I am afraid something must be going to happen to 
him. 'Yes,' he would go on Sunday; 'yes,' he would be there a 
quarter before six; yes, he would walk there, aud let you send him 
home. Exactly as you predicted, he did not come in till half-past 
six by the clock. It is a pity for poor me; I daren't do anything 
pleasant ever. Though, like the pigs, I get used to it, and am 
thankful if I can but keep on foot iu-doors. 

I am bent on seeing her and Katie, however, before we go to the 
Grange. 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane Cablyle. 

[In T. O.'s hand:—] 

Yes, Saturday ; — for the brougham to fetch me, no, with thanks. 
— T. C. 

(Written then!— T. C.) 

LETTER 218. 

Autumn 1860, I made a visit of four or five weeks to Sir George 
Sinclair at Thurso. Early in the summer of that year, I was vis- 
ited by sleeplessness; and first began to have an apprehension that 
I should never get my sad book on Friedrich finished, that it would 
finish me instead. I still remember well enough the dark, cold, 
vague, yet authentic-looking feeling of terror that shot athwart me 
as I sat smoking ' up the chimney,' huddled in rugs, dressing-gown 
and cape, with candle on the hob, my one remedy in sleepless cases; 
the first real assault of fear, pointing, as it were, to undeniable 
fact; and how it saddened me the whole of next day. The second 
day, I compared it to Luther's temptings by the devil; and thought 
to myself in Luther's dialect, 'Well, well, HerrTeufel, we will just 
go on as long as we are alive; and keep working, all the same, till 



thou do get us killed! ' This put away the terror, but would by no 
means bring the sieep back. I recollect lying whole nights awake, 
still as a stone; getting up at six, and ridiugto Clapham Common, 
to Hammersmith region, by way of surrogate for sleep. My head 
had au unpleasant cloudy feeling; I was certainly far from well, 
far below my average of illness even. Brother John, who lived in 
his Bromptou lodgings then, recommended strongly a sea-voyage; 
voyage to Thurso, for example, whither the hospitable Sir George 
Sinclair had been again, perhaps for the third or fourth time, 
eagerly inviting me. Nothing else being so feasible, and something 
being clearly indispensable, we both set off, John volunteering to 
escort me to Wick; and generously and effectively performing that 
fraternal service. The very first night, in spite of the tumults of 
the crowded Aberdeen steamer, and such a huddle of a sleeping- 
place as is ouly seen at sea, I slept deep for six or seven hours; and 
had not again, during this visit, nor for years, any real misery 
about sleep. 

On the part of my generous host and household, nothing was left 
wanting; I was allowed to work daily some hours, invisible till 
three p.m. I bathed daily in the Peutland Firth in sight of the 
'Old Man,' roamed about, saw 'John o' Groat's House' (evidently 
an old lime kiln!), &c. &c, a country ancient, wild, and lonely, more 
than enough impressive to me. I was very sad, ' soui exceeding 
solitary;' nothing could help that. Sir George was abundantly 
conversible, anecdotic, far-read, far experienced, indeed a quite 
learned man (would read me lyrics, &c, straight from the Greek 
any eveuing, nothing pleased him better), and full of piety, verac- 
ity, and good-nature, but it availed little; I was sad aud weary, all 
things bored me! Here at Chelsea, with my clever Jeannie for 
hostess, and some clever Mrs. Twistleton lor fellow-guest, Sir 
George was reported to be charming and amusing at their little din- 
ner, while I sat aloft and wrote. But not here could he amuse; not 
here, though his constant perfect goodness, and the pleasure he al- 
ways expressed over me, were really welcome, wholesome, and re- 
ceived with gratitude. I had many invitations from him afterwards, 
saw him here annually once or twice; but never went to Thurso 
again; never could get going, had I even wished it more. 

Few letters went from me in that Thurso solitude, none that I 
could help. From my darling herself I seemed to receive still 
fewer than I wrote; the tediously slow posts, I remember, were un- 
intelligible to her, provoking to her! Here is one, beyond what I 
could count on, come to me last week among four of my own, 
printed on 'approval,' in some memoirs of Sir George, which the 
relations have set a certain well-known Mr. James Grant upon 
writing! To Miss Sinclair's poor request, I said reluctantly yes — 
could not say no; corrected the five letters (not without difficulty); 
returned my own four originals; retained (resolutely) the original 
of this, and a printed copy as well as this. (December 13, 1869.) 
— T. C. 

The letter from Mrs. Carlyle to Sir George Sinclair is not dated, 
so far as regards the year; but evidently follows close on the fore- 
going. It is felicitously playful in reference to her own husband. 
It is as follows: — 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: August 1, 1860. 

My dear Sir, — Decidedly you are more thoughtful for me than 
the man who is bound by vow to ' love and cherish me;' not a lino 
have I received from him to announce his safe arrival in your do- 
minions. The more shameful on his part, that, as it appears by 
your note, he had such good accounts to give of himself, and wa» 
perfectly up to giving them. 

Well! now that you have relieved me from all anxiety about the 
effects of the journey on him, he may write at bis own ' reasonably 
good leisure.' Ouly I told him I should not write till I had heard of 
his arrival from himself; aud he knows whether or no I am in the 
habit of keeping my word — to the letter. 

A thousand thanks for the primrose roots; which I shall plant, as 
soon as it fairs! To-day we have again a deluge; adding a deeper 
shade of honor to certain household operations going on under my 
inspection (by way of 'improving the occasion' of his absence!). 
One bedroom has got all the feathers of its bed and pillows airing 
themselves out on the floorl creating an atmosphere of down in the 
house, more choking than even ' cotton fuzz.' In another, uphol- 
sterers and painters are plashing away for their life; and a couple 
of bricklayers are tearing up flags in the kitchen to seek ' the solu- 
tion ' of a non-acting drain! All this on the one hand; aud on the 
other, visits from my doctor, resulting in ever new 'composing 
draughts,' aud strict charges to ' keep my mind perfectly tranquil.' 
You will admit that one could easily conceive situations more ideal. 

Pray do keep him as long as you like! To hear of him 'in high 
spirits' and ' looking remarkably well ' is more composing for me 
than any amount of ' composing draughts,' or of insistence on the 
benefits of ' keeping myself perfectly tranquil.' It is so very dif- 
ferent a state of things with him from that in which I have seen 
him for a long time back! 

Oh ! I must not forget to give you the ' kind remembrances ' of a 
very charming woman, whom any man may be pleased to be re- 
membered by, as kindly as she evidently remembered youl I speak 
of Lady William Russell. She knew you in Germany, 'a young 
student,' she told me, when she was Bessie Rawdon. She ' had a 
great affection for you, and had often thought of you since. ' You 



112 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



were 'very romantic in those days; oh, very romantic and sentimen- 
tal,' she could assure me! Pray send me back a pretty message for 
her; she will like so much to know that she has not remembered 
you ' with the reciprocity all on one side. ' 
I don't even send my regards to Mr. C. , but — 

Affectionately yours, 

Jane W. Carltle. 



LETTER 219. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., 1'hurso Castle. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Friday, Aug. 10, 1860. 

Oh my dear! If ' all about feelings ' be bad in a letter, all about 
scenery and no feelings is a deal worse! Such a letter as that I re- 
ceived from you, yesterday, after much half-anxious, hall-angry 
waiting for, will read charmingly in your biography! and may be 
quoted in ' Murray's Guide Book;' but for ' me, as one solitary in- 
dividual,' I was not charmed with it at all! Nevertheless, I should 
have answered it by return of post, had I not been too ill for writ- 
ing anything yesterday, except, on the strength of phrenzy, a pas- 
sionate appeal to the 'retired cheesemonger,' about his dog, which, 
I am happy to say, like everything coming straight from the heart, 
went straight to the heart of the good little old cheesemonger. You 
will infer, from my going ahead against ' noises' on my own ac- 
count, that the 'extraordinary disturbance of the nervous system,' 
which Mr. Barnes found me suffering under when he came, has not 
yielded yet to an equally extraordinary amount of ' composing 
mixture! ' My sleep had been getting ' small by degrees, and beau- 
tifully less,' till I ended in lying awake'the whole nights through! 
not what you call ' awake,' that is, dozing; but broad wide awake, 
like a hawk with an empty stomach! Still the mixture was to be 
persevered in, nay, increased, and I was assured that it was 'doing 
me a little good,' so little I myself couldn't perceive it, even through 
the powerful microscope of my faith in Mr. Barnes! and, in spite 
of his assurance that 'home was the best place for me at present,' I 
had wild impulses to ' take the road ' (like the ' Doctor,' and with the 
Doctor's purposelessness!). The night before last, however (Wed- 
nesday night), I fell into a deep natural sleep, which lasted two 
hours, and might have lasted till the masons began, but for cheese- 
monger's dog, which was out that night (bad luck to it!) on a spree! 
and startled me awake at three of the morning with furious con- 
tinuous barking — just as if my head was being laid open with re- 
peated strokes of a hatchet! Of course I ' slept no more;' and yes- 
terday was too ill for anything except, as I have said, writing a wild 
appeal to the cheesemonger. 1 will inclose his comforting answer 
wliich lie handed in himself an hour after. It will be comforting 
to you also, in reference to your own future nights. 

I have nothing to tell that you will take any interest in, ex- 
cept about the horse. He is still under the process of ' breaking,' ' 
poor creature! Is ' so nervous and resolute,' so ' dreadful resolute,' 
that the breaker ' can't tell bow long it will take to get the better 
of him! ' I must see Silvester to-day before writing to Frederick 
Chapman. I saw the poor horse three days ago, just coming in from 
the breaker's, like a horse just returning from the 'Thirty Years' 
War!' Poor beast! I could have cried for him — required to turn 
over a new leaf in his old age! I know what that is! 

'The nephew of Haggi Babda.' dropt in 'quite promiscuously' 
last Sunday evening, when old Jane was out at church, and I was 
alone, except for Geraldine, who opened the door to him, and after- 
wards talked social metaphysics with him! He is the fattest young 
large man I ever saw, out of a caravan ! but in other respects rather 
charming. He wished me to impress on you how happy he would 
be to transact any commissions for you at Berlin, ' for which his 
connection witli the embassy might give him facilities, &c. , &c.' 
He seemed heartily in earnest about this, and a hearty admirer of 
your ' Frederick.' He is the best-bred, pleasantest man I have seen 
' for seven years,' and the hour and half lie stayed would have been 
delightful, if I hadn't been deadly sick all the while, and my nerv- 
ous system ' in an extraordinary state of disturbance.' 

Tell Sir George I have planted the cowslips, ' with my own hand,' 
and have not needed to water them, ' the heavenly wateriug-pan ' 
(which Mariotti spoke of) having spared me the trouble. I gave 
them the place of highest honour (round poor little Nero's stone). 
I have had tires all day long for the last week — such a summer! 
Lady Stanley sent me her portrait. The only bit of real pleasant- 
ness, however, that has come my way has been, last Wednesday, a 
visit from William Dodds and his wife. The}' told me such things 
about the behaviour of the London Donaldsons, when they went 
down to Miss Jess's funeral! 

Your situation sounds as favourable as a conditional world could 
have afforded you. I trust in Heaven that you will go on improv- 
ing in it. 

You remember, no pens got mended, so you won't wonder at this 
scrawling. 

Yours ever, 

J. Welsh Carltle. 



1 To run in harness; but he wouldn't — couldn't— though the hest-tatured of 
horses, poor Fritz ! 



LETTER 220. 
T. Carlyle, Thttrso Castle. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Friday, Aug. 17, I860. 

Thanks for the two letters, dear! 1 ' did intend ' to have answered 
them together, at full length, by to-day's post, but have been hin- 
dered sadly, and ignominiously, by — ' what shall I say? '—an attack 
of British cholera! Don't be alarmed ; it is over now"! anditisstill 
but two o'clock, and, though I was ill all night as well as all the 
forenoon, I don't feel disabled for writing. It is an appointment 
with Lady Sandwich, which I don't like to break, that takes away 
the remaining two and a half hours, in which 1 might have written 
a sufficient letter. She sent the coachman last night, with a note 
to say she had returned to Grosveuor Square, on account of a slight 
attack of bronchitis, and would I tell the coachman when to bring 
the carriage to fetch me ; I appointed a quarter before three to-day, 
not foreseeing what the night had in reserve for me! Indeed, I had 
no reason to expect anything of the sort, having been sleeping bet- 
ter, and feeling better in every way for the last week'. I rather 
' happrehcnd ' it was my own imprudence, in taking a glass of bit- 
ter ale at supper that caused this deadly sickness, and — other things. 
Trust me for doing the best for myself, in the circumstances. I am 
the last person to let myself be humbugged by a doctor; Mr. Barnes 
was perfectly right in ordering me, at the time you left, to put all 
ideas of travelling out of my head, and ' go to bed for two hours 
every forenoon instead.' And the mixture, which for many days 
failed in its intended effect, on account (he said) of the excitement 
I was in, got to do me palpable, unmistakable good at last, and is 
now discontinued by his own order. At the time you left I was 
hanging on the verge of nervous fever, and have made a very near 
miss of it! He does not disapprove of my going away now, pro- 
vided I keep short of fatigue and excitement, and I am taking steps 
towards forming a programme. I will tell you in a day or two 
what direction I have decided on. I should like very well to spend 
a day or so at the Gill ; but a stay of any length there would not 
suit me at all. Milk is no object, as it is not strong enough food 
for my present weak appetite; and solitude is positively hurtful to 
me. Human kindness is precious everywhere, and nobody appre- 
ciates it more than I do; but just the kinder they are, the more I 
should be tempted to exert myself in talking, and putting my con- 
tentment in evidence. In short, there would be a strain upon me, 
while I was supposed to be enjoying the height of freedom! I mean 
were my stay prolonged beyond the day or two during which the en- 
thusiasm of meeting after so long absence, and having things to 
tell one another, holds out. I am so sorry to put you off with such 
a scrubby letter, but the carriage will be here before I am dressed ; 
and here is my beef-tea — my first breakfast. 

Kind love to Sir George. 

Yours ever, 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 221. 

Mrs. Russell, Thomhill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Friday, Aug. 17, 1860. 

Dearest Mary, — I haven't leisure to commence this letter with re- 
proaches; for the reproaches would be very long, and my time for 
writing is very short. In an hour hence a carriage will come to 
take me to a sick old lady, I myself being quite as sick and nearly 
as old, and there are directions to be given to divers workmen be- 
fore I start. For Mr. Carlyle is absent at Thurso, and I have taken 
the opportunity of turniug'a carpenter, and a painter, and a paper- 
hanger into his private apartment. 

Yes, after repeatedly assuring you that Mr. Carlyle would not go 
north this summer, but restrict his travels to some sea-side place 
near hand, I am almost ashamed to tell you that he has gone 
' north ' after all, and further north than he ever was in all his life 
before, being on a visit to Sir George Sinclair at Thurso Castle — 
the northermost point of Scotland. "A trial of Brighton bad been 
made, and bad ended abruptly and ignominiously in flight back to 
Chelsea, to get out of the sound of certain cocks. Of all places in 
the world, Brighton was the last one could have expected to be in- 
fested with poultry. But one week of Brighton had only increased 
Mr. C.'s desire for sea, and indeed be had got into such a sleepless, 
excited condition through prolonged over-work, that there could be 
no doubt about the need of what they call ' a complete change ' for 
him. So he looked about for a sea-residence, where he might be 
safe from cocks and cocknevs, and decided for Thurso Castle, 
which could moreover be reached by sailing, which he prefers in- 
finitely to railwaying, and whence there had come a pressing invi- 
tation for us both to spend a couple of months. Accordingly, he 
streamed off there a fortnight ago, I remaining behind for several 
reasons; first, that sailing is as much as ray life is worth, and seven 
hundred miles of railway would have been just about as fatal. 
Second, if I was going to undertake a long journey, I might take it 
in directions that would better repay the trouble and expense. And 
third, the long worry and anxiety I had bad with Mr. C.'s nervous- 
ness had reduced myself to the brink of a nervous fever, and my 
doctor was peremptory as to the unfitness of my either going with 
Mr. C. , or rejoining him at Thurso. Indeed I was not to leave home 
at all in the state I was in, but to take three composing draughts a 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



US 



day! and go to bed for two hours every forenoon. A fortnight of 
this and perfect quiet in the house has calmed me down amazingly, 
only I feel as tired as if I were just returned from the ' thirty 
years' war.' And now Mr. Barnes does not object to my going 
away, provided I don't go to Mr. C. ! and don't over-exert myself. 
Mr. C, who is already immensely improved by his residence at 
Thurso Castle, is all for everybody 'going into the country,' and 
has made up his mind that, like it or not, I must go ' instantly' to 
— the Gill (Mary Austin's), which, as it suits his milk-loving habits, 
he thinks would equally suit me. And I myself would like very 
well to turn my two or three remaining weeks of liberty to some 
more agreeable use than superintending the bouse cleaning here! 
But decidedly mooning about, all by myself, at the Gill, lapping 
milk, which doesn't agree with me, and being stared at by the Gill 
children as their ' aunt! ' is not the happy change for which I would 
go far, much as I like Mary Austin. 

Now, I want to know how you are situated, whether the invita- 
tion held out to me, and which I, ' ignorant of the future,' declined 
for this year, be still open to me; for if I had it in my power to go 
on to you for a week or so from the Gill, I might give myself the 
air of a charmingly obedient wife, and agree to go there, without 
my obedience costing me any personal sacrifice. I could break the 
long journey by staying a few days at Alderley Park (Lord Stan- 
ley's), where I have half engaged to go in any case. But I don't 
know if you are settled yet, or if you are not gone somewhere for 
change of air yourself, or if somebody else be not located, for the 
present, in my room, and unfortunately I am tied to time. 1 must. 
be back in London — some weeks before Mr. C. ; for reasons I will 
explain later, for they require time to explain them. 

In the meanwhile you will, in any case, answer me, as briefly as 
you like, by return of post? for I shan't answer Mr. C. till I get 
your letter. And I do beseech you to be perfectly frank, to tell 
me if you are going anywhere, or if anybody else is coming to you, 
or if my room is not ready yet, or, worst of all, if you are poorly, 
and can't be troubled. 

I understand that state so thoroughly well. 

Your affectionate 

Jane W. Cablylb. 

LETTER 222. 
T. Cariyle, Thurso Castle. 
Alderley Park, Congleton, Cheshire: Thursday, Aug. 23, 1860. 

There! What do you think of this? If you knew all you would 
admit that I have as much ' courage ' as your horse, which ' goes 
whether he can or not. ' But the present is not a moment for en- 
tering into details, of how ill I was after my last letter, and of how 
my illness was complicated with household griefs, and of how it 
was necessary to leave for here at hardly a day's notice, or give up 
altogether the idea of going anywhere. All that will keep till I 
am in better case for writing a long letter, or even till we meet ' on 
our return from the thirty years' war.' Enough to say, for the 
present, that I am here on a most kindly pressing invitation from 
Lady Stanley, to stay ' a week,' and ' be nursed ' (you may be sure 
it was pressing enough when /accepted it), and that my intention 
is, if I get as much better as I hope, to go on from here to the Gill, 
and from there, after a day or two's rest, to Holm Hill (Mrs. Rus- 
sell's), where I can remain with advantage as long as I find expedi. 
ent with relation to the time of your return home. 

Mrs. Russell had been urging me to visit, them for the last three 
mouths at intervals. And I am always much made of, and very 
comfortable there. And to have a doctor for one's host was a con- 
sideration of some weight with me, under the circumstances, in 
choosing that ultimate destination. I couldn't have travelled all 
the way to Dumfriesshire at one fell rush; but the invitation to 
Alderley broke the journey beautifully for me. It (the coming to 
Alderley) had been spuken of, or rather written of, by Lady Sr be- 
fore I last wrote to you, but I was afraid to say a word about it in 
case you had played me the same trick as in the case of Louisa 
Baring. No time had been specified then. So that when I re- 
ceived a letter on Monday (written in forgetfulness of the interven- 
ing Sunday), urging me to he at Cbelford station on Tuesday by 
four o'clock, where Lady S. would send the carriage for me, it 
quite took away my breath. I could not possibly get myself and 
the house packed by Tuesday. Besides, Lady Ashburton had of- 
fered to come to tea with me on Tuesday, and been accepted, ' in 
my choicest mood;' so I answered that I would, D.V., be at Cbel- 
ford station by four on Wednesday. 

A more tired human being than myself, when I got into the train 
at Euston Square yesterday, you haven't seen ' this seven years.' 
Geraldine and Mr. Larkin escorted me there, and paid me the last 
attentions. I was hardly out of sight of the station when I fell 
back in my seat and went to sleep, and slept off and on (me, in a 
railway carriage !) all the way to Crewe, where I was roused into 
the usual wide-awakeness by seeing the van containing my port- 
manteau go off as for good. It came back, however, after much 
running and remonstrating; and I was put down at Cbelford 'all 
right' in a pouring rain, which indeed had poured without a mo- 
ment's intermission all day. The carriage was waiting with 
drenched coachman and footman, who I had the discomfort of 



thinking must wish me at Jericho, at the least, and I was soon in 
the hall at Alderley, into which Lady S., with the girls at her back, 
came running to welcome me with kisses and good words, a much 
more human mode of receiving visitors than I had been used to in 
great houses. In fact, the whole thing is very human, and very 
humane as well. Lord S. is still in London, Postmaster-General 
you will have heard — nobody here but Lady S. and the girls, which 
suits my nervous system, and also my wardrobe (which I had no 
time or care to get up) much better than company would have 
done. Indeed, I had made the aloneness and dulness, which Lady 
S. had complained of, my conditions in accepting her invitation. 
Mr. Barnes had been saying all be could about ' the excited state 
of my brain ' (I too have a brain it seems?) to frighten me into 
' taking better care ' of myself, and ' avoiding every sort of worry, 
and fuss, and fatigue,' as if anybody could avoid worry, and fuss, 
and fatigue in this world. Worry, and fuss, and fatigue under the 
name of 'pleasure,' of 'amusement,' that however one certainly 
may avoid. So I should not have gone wilfully into a houseful of 
visitors. 

I shall write to Mary to-day. I had the kindest little letter from 
her. 

Love to Sir George. I have had no letter from you since — I can- 
not remember when. Yours ever, 

J. W. C. 

F. Chapman will have written about the horse he undertook to 
break. Silvester says the horse is not broken, has a nasty trick 
that would break any brougham — turns sharp round, and stands 
stock still, in spite of all you can do, holding his head to one side 
as if he were listening. Poor dear Fritz. The breaker, who I sup- 
pose desires to be rid of it, says to Chapman it is broken, and Fred- 
erick means to try it himself. 

LETTER 223. 

Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill. 

Alderley Park, Congleton : Saturday, Aug. 25, 1860. 

My dearest Mary, — I could sit down and take a good hearty cry. 
I am not to get to you after all. This morning is come a letter 
from Mr. C, forwarded from Chelsea, giving me the astounding 
news that there is every likelihood of his coming home by next 
Wednesday's steamer. Always the way, whenever I go anywhere 
to please myself — plump he appears at Chelsea, and, just now, his 
appearance there in my absence would be (as Lord Ashburton would 
say) ' the devil ! ' 

I cannot enter into an account of my household affairs just now 
— being long, and most ridiculous. I was keeping it as an amus- 
ing story for you when we met. I will write the story from Chel- 
sea at my first leisure (when will that be?). But just now I am 
too vexed for making a good story, besides being too busy, having 
so many letters demanding to be written about this provoking 
change of plan. When I leave here, it must be straight for Chel- 
sea, and I must go on Tuesday morning. What a pity! I was just 
beginning to recover my sleep in the fresh air and the absence of 
worries — have had actually two nights of good sleep; and they are 
so kind to me, and they to whom I was going would have been so 
kind to me! But when one has married a man of genius, one must 
take the consequences. Only there was no need for him to have 
spoken of staying at Thurso till the beginning of October, and 
misled me so. Your loving friend, 

J. W. C. 
LETTER 224. 
T. Cariyle, Thurso Castle. 

Alderley Park: Sunday, Aug. 26, 1860. 

Oh, dear me! this length of days needed for a letter written to 
or from Thurso, to get an answer in the course of post, is very 
trying to impatient spirits! Not on account of the slowness only, 
but on account of the ' change come o'er the spirit of one's dream ' 
in the interval between the post's going out and coming in. Not 
once, since you went to that accursedly out-of-the-way place, has a 
letter from you found me in the same mood and circumstances to 
which it was addressed, as being the mood and circumstances in 
which my own letter had left me, and of course it has been the 
same with my letters to you. For example, your announcement 
that you might be home immediately, crossing my announcement 
that I was on the road to Scotland. Now I write to say I am 
turning back, and shall be at Chelsea, D.V., on Tuesday afternoon, 
to prepare for you, in case you do come soon, which I shall regret 
for your sake ; a few more weeks of sound sleep would be so good 
for you. What will be the contents of the letter that crosses this? 
Something quite irrelevant I have no doubt. Perhaps assurances 
that you can do perfectly well at Chelsea without me, and that I 
am to stay in Scotland as long as I like, when I shall be reading 
the letter at Cheyne Row, and as sure as ever woman was of any- 
thing that you could not have done at Chelsea without me for 
twelve hours. 

The week before my departure, which should have been devoted 
to setting my house in order, was devoted to British cholera, which, 
coming on the back of low nervous fever, reduced me to a state of 
exhaustion, which even ' zeal for my house ' couldn't rouse to the 



114 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



requisite activity. Many tilings had been begun, but few of them 
finished — for instance, your bed had been all taken to pieces to look 
for bugs, and it had been ascertained that not one bug survived 
there, and the bed had been put together, but the curtains were 
away being cleaned. 

Fancy your coming home to a curtainless bed, and 'Old Jane' ' 
■would have made no shift! for ' Old Jane,' my dear, I may as well 
tell you soon as syne, is a complete failure and humbug! Although 
you provokingly enough attributed the silence I systematically ob- 
serve on the shortcomings of servants to want of ' care about it,' I 
still think that until I am arrived at parting with a servant, and 
have to show reason why, the more I hold my peace about them, 
and make the best of them, the more for your comfort and for my 
own credit. 2 ' Old Jane ' then disappointed me from the first day. 
Before you left I had satisfied myself that she was a perfectly in- 
competent cook and servant, and soon after you left I satisfied 
myself that she — told lies! and had no more sense of honour in her 
work than Charlotte. There was no need to worry you with the 
topic of her, which was to myself perfectly loathsome, until I had 
to account for replacing her. I mention her now to reconcile you 
to the idea of my having gone back home to wait for you. You 
couldn't have done without me, you see. I have engaged a woman 
of thirty-four, who is really promising (the woman Miss Evans 
wanted to have), and a remarkably nice-looking girl of sixteen to 
be under her. 3 She would not have taken a place of ' all work, 
and indeed it is very difficult to find even a respectable servant who 
will take it — naturally, when they can find plenty of less confused 
places. She, the elder woman, comes home on September 14, and 
I wished the girl to wait till then. I think the house will really be 
comfortable and orderly by-and-by — at more cost; but that, you 
said repeatedly, you didn't mind. At all rates, I have taken 
immense trouble (two journeys to Richmond included), to find 
respectable and competent servants. If I have failed, it will just 
be another instance of my ill-luck, rather than my want of zeal. 

Maud 4 has been sitting in my room waiting till I am done. Ex- 
cuse haste and abrupt ending. I cau't write on this principle, and 
I shan't get a chance again before post time. 

Yours, 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 225. 

Surely this is one of the saddest of letters — the misery of it 
merely slowness of posts, and on both sides hardly bearable heavi- 
ness of load. Oh, my own much-suffering little woman!— T. C. 

T. Carlyle, Thurso Castle. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Sunday. Sept. 2, 1860. 

This is all — 'what shall I say? strange, upon my honour! ' On 
Friday morning comes a note from Sir George (that had gone round 
by Alderley) to the effect that his ' dear friend's pen being more 
devoted to the service of unborn generations than to mine ' (truly! 
and if the 'unborn generations' will do the answering, I shan't ob- 
ject!), and another expedition to John o' Groats being on foot, he 
writes to tell me the dear friend has been prevailed upon. &c. &c. 
Well! 'I am most particularly glad to hear it," like Archivarius 
Lyndhorst. The more of Thurso Castle, the better for his sleep, 
and his head; and, as concerns myself, the more time for putting 
things straight here, the better for my sleep, and my head! (if so 
insignificant an individual can be said to have a head!) But cer- 
tainly on the following morning (Saturday), there would be a few 
lines from the dear friend's self, snatched from his service to ' un- 
born generations' to tell me 'with his own hand' of his change of 
plan! No! On Saturday morning the postman didn't so much as 
call! and when I ran out at the house door to see if he could really 
mean it. he merely shook his head from the steps of No. 8. Late 
at night, however, I hear of a letter from you, received that morn- 
ing by Neuberg. There had been time found or made to write to 
him. And he 'thought it his duty to,' not forward your letter to 
me, but interlard his own note with single words or whole lines of 
yours 'in ticks' 6 — 'means to move gradually southward again, 
wishes you could be persuaded to start again, if able at all, and to 
rectify her huge error! ' &c. Who was to ' persuade ' me to start 
again? Neuberg himself, perhaps? Not you it would seem, who 
send not a single line to, as it were, welcome me home, though 
come home entirely for your sake! No matter! there is the less to 
be grateful for! 

Meanwhile I am glad to know, even indirectly, that you are 
positively coming south by land, and 'gradually.' The two notes 
written after hearing I was at Alderley. and bound for Dumfries- 
shire, which were received together (on account of the misdirec- 
tion), within an hour of the time 1 lie carriage was ordered to 
take me to the station, threw no certain light for me on your 
plans. When you first fixed to go to Thurso, your grand induce- 

1 I have quite forgotten. 

2 Alas! can that need to be said?— insane that I was! 

s Yes. I recollect these two. I had often latterly been urging ' two ser- 
Tants,' but she never tilt now- would comply. The elder of these 'two' did 
not suit either. A conceited fool; got the name 'Perfection,' and (to the 
great joy of the younger, who continued worthily) had to go in a few months. 

* Stanley. 

* Her own Scotch name for double commas. 



ment had seemed to be that you 'could saiv there, and back, 
and avoid all that horror of railways.' You had never once 
in my hearing spoken of taking Dumfriesshire on your road; 
on the contrary, when I spoke to you of Loch Luichart, you said: 
' Oh, that was a great way off! and you shouldn't be going back by 
land at all! ' Then the letter, forwarded to Alderley from Chelsea, 
written in the belief I was still at home, made no allusion whatever 
to any intention of taking Dumfriesshire on your road home. You 
could not remain there longer, without work, and, to get on with 
your work, you must be ' beside your reservoir of books at Chel- 
sea.' Read that letter yourself — Mary Austin has got it (I sent it to 
her as my valid excuse for breaking my engagement to come, and 
as a valid excuse she accepted it) — and say if I was committing 
any 'huge error,' or error at all, in supposing it in the highest de- 
gree probable that you would sail straight from Thurso to London? 
And granting that high probability, there was but one course for 
me, under the circumstances (the curtains; the keys, which you 
could never have known one from another! the imbecile 'Old 
Jane;' the new servant to come, &c. &c.) — but one course; to go 
south again instead of north, on the day when my Alderley visit 
was to terminate: unless, after my resolution was taken, and every- 
body warned not to expect me in Dumfriesshire, and the new 
woman who had been put off warned that she must now imme- 
diately render herself at Cheyne Row — unless, after all that, I was 
to unsettle everything over again at the very last hour, when there 
was no longer time to warn anybody. On the receipt of the two 
little letters, which came together, taking them as an exposition of 
your voluntary plans, not of plans which you had been forced to 
adopt voluntarily by the knowledge of mine — by the dread of going 
home to a comfortless house, and, simultaneously with that, a kind 
desire not to interfere with any arrangements of mine by which my 
health might be benefited. No! I could not be quite certain that, 
were I at Chelsea instead of half-way to Scotland, you might not 
still wish to avoid the ' horror of railways,' and to get back to your 
'reservoir of books.' At all events, you should have your free 
choice, and now you hav2 had it, and I learn, through Mr. Neuberg, 
that it is to be ' in no hurry.' I am very glad of that, as I shall be 
in better trim for you here than had you come straight. 

As to my ' starting again ' (on any long expedition at least), you 
couldn't believe Mr. Neuberg or anyone else could persuade me to 
do it! I am not 'able at all,' which does not mean, however, that 
I am ill. My three days at Alderley, before the letter came, did 
me all the good which I was likely to get from change of scene; — 
after the letter came, my sleep was no better than at Chelsea. 
When I am worried about anything, no air nor surroundings can 
put me to sleep. At present your curtains are come home and put 
up. The bricklayers have mended the broken tiles on your dress- 
ing closet. That dreadful old woman is to be got handsomely rid 
of next Wednesday; and I feel rather quiet, and am getting to 
sleep better, and mean to lead a pleasant life in my solitude — taking 
these 'little excursions so long talked of.' 

Lad}' Stanley was to write t<> you, the da}' I left, to tell you I was 
despatched safely south. My own letter, to say I was going home 
on Tuesday, would reach you last Monday I suppose. You will 
write when the 'unborn generations' can spare you for half an 
hour. 

The only news I have to tell is, that the poor ' little darling! ' ' has 
lost the use of an arm and hand by paralysis. He came himself to 
tell me, with his arm in a sling, and repeatedly broke down into 
tears, and made me cry too. 'Oh!' he said, ' how I do miss my 
poor dear!' — I thought he was going to say wife — she died two 
years since; but, no.it was 'arm!' 'Oh, how I miss my poor dear 
arm!' He didn't need money, wouldn't even be paid what was 
owing him. It was the helplessness that was breaking his heart. 

All good be with you. 

Yours ever. 

Jane Welsii Cahltle. 

Don't expect another letter for a long time, even should I know 
the address; writing is very bad for me, and I hate it at present. 

LETTER 226. 
T. Carlyle, Thurso Castle. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Monday, Sept. 3, 1860. 
Two letters from you this morning — one redirected from Alder- 
ley. But I must let the long letter I wrote yesterday go, as it is 
all the same! It is too much writing to throw away, after having 
given myself a headache over it. Besides, after having read your 
two letters of this morning, I feel none the less called upon to de- 
fend myself against the charge of 'huge error,' 'rashness.' ' precip- 
itancy,' 'folly.' and so on! "I maintain that, however unfortunate 
my course may have been, I could not, under the circumstances, 
have rightly taken any other! So the letter of yesterday had best 
go! Nor do I deign to accept the very beggarly apology you make 
for my ' infatuated conduct,' that I had myself lost heart for the 
Dumfriesshire visits, and was glad of any excuse to be off from 
them; that tortuous style of thing is not at all in my line. Had I 
lost heart I would have said so. On the contrary, feeling myself 



1 Her name for a neat and good old gardener that used to work for us. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



115 



at Alderley, half-way — all the hateful preparatory lockings up and 
packings well over— nothing to do but go north at Crewe instead of 
south, aud Mary Austin and Mrs. Russell promising me the very 
warmest welcome, far from losing heart, I had for the first time 
gakifid heart for the further enterprise ; the ' interest ' had ' not 
fallen but risen,' I assure you, aud I turned south with real morti- 
fication! There! you have provoked that out of me, which, if 
'well let alone,' I should never have said. 

As for your indignation at my not writing, I don't quarrel with 
that — only beg to remind you that ' the reciprocity is not all on one 
side!' I also have been feeling myself extremely neglected — for 
what shall I say? 'unborn generations? ' Let us hope so, and not 
for just nothing at all! 

Ever yours, 

J. W. C. 
LETTER 227. 
Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill, Tliornhill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Sept. 7, 1860. 

Dearest Mary, — I am so sorry that letter should have arrived to 
mislead you, for, alas! I have had no thought of starting again, 
since I found, on my return home, that Mr. C. had made a per- 
fectly wrong impression on me as to his plans! When he talked 
of 'sailing' by such a steamer, how could I imagine he only meant 
sailing to Aberdeen, and afterwards making visits in Scotland? 
He had always declared the attraction of Thurso, for him, to be 
the possibility of getting there aud back by sea, without any horror 
of 'railwaying.' And he had never once spoken of returning 
through Dumfriesshire! My error was quite natural, almost in- 
evitable. But that doesu't make it the less mortifying for myself 
and others. 

If I had ordinary powers of locomotion I should, on perceiving 
the real state of the case, have streamed off again — this time straight 
to the Gill. But indeed, my dear, I have no such thing as ordinary 
strength. When I told my doctor that Mr. C. urged me to do this, 
he fairly swore, though a very mild man by nature! It was not 
merely the ground to be gone over, but the fuss and flurry of so 
much travelling for me, that he entirely protested against. ' Quiet, 
quiet, quiet ' was what I needed above everything else — no change 
could do me good that involved fatigue or fret of mind. I know 
he is right in that, and that no purer air nor change of scene could 
do me good if bought with a new unsettling of myself, and the 
hurry of mind inseparable from travelling, especially railway trav- 
elling, for a person whose nervous system is in such a preternatural 
state of excitability as mine is. I should never have had courage 
to think of going to you at all but for the week's rest in the middle 
of the journey, offered in the visit to Alderley. It has been a real 
disappointment to me, having had to turn back, and a great provo- 
cation to find my turning back unnecessary. But, now that I am 
here, I must make the best of it. 

I will write you a long letter soon, and tell you several things 
about ray household affairs which will throw more light for you on 
the supposed necessity for my abrupt return. 

God bless you, dear. 

Your ever affectionate 

Jane W. Carltle. 

LETTER 228. 

'I did it, sir.' — Blusterous pedagogue, a Welsh Archdeacon Wil- 
liams, head of the Edinburgh New Academy (who used to call at 
Comely Bank, reporting to us his dreadful illness he once had, ill- 
ness miserable and fatal ' unless you can dine for three weeks with- 
out wine ' — ' and I did it, sir! ' — T. C. 

T. Caiiyle, Scotsbrig. 
5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Sunday night, Sept. 10, 1860. 
Oh, my dear! was there ever such a game at cross-purposes as 
this correspondence of ours? It reminds me of nothing so much as 
the passages between 'the wee wifie, who lived in a shoe,' and her 
bairns, so many ' that she didn't know what to do! ' 

' She went to the market to buy them some bread; 
When she came back they were all lying dead! 
She went to the Wright's to get them a coffin; 
When she came back they were all sitting laughing! ' 

Not one letter you have written to me since you went away has 
hit the right state of things! Do the best that ever you could, your 
'sheep's head' aud your 'coffin' have been equally out of time! 
Buch beiug, I suppose, the natural result of going where an answer 
to one's letters cannot be received in less than six days, in a world 
where nothing keeps still. 

Your last letter, received on Saturday morning, expressing your 
relief from anxieties about me, found me a more legitimate object 
of anxiety than I had been at all since your departure! — at least 
found me thinking myself so! For. thank God, this attack, if very 
violent while it lasted, has passed off unexpectedly soon. I suppose 
if I had followed Mr. Barnes's directions about lying down in the 
middle of the day. instead of yielding to popular clamour about 
' change of air,' the thing would have been avoided altogether. On 
Friday morning down came Geraldine, having had a letter from 
you, and insisted that we should make one of those ' excursions ' I 



had talked of. I had my ' sickness ' (as I call it) worse than usual 
that morning, and begged to be off from any adventure; but 'a 
breath of Norwood air would dome so much goodl' 'It would 
take off the sickness to sit on the hillside,' &c, &c. I didu't feel 
that it would, but foolishly yielded to ' reason ' rather lhau instinct. 
The movement made me sicker, and sicker; still I had forlitude to 
order dinner (a nice little roasted chicken, and a bottle of soda-water) 
at the best hotel, and to force myself to eat some of it too, at au 
open- bow-window, with such a ' beautiful view.' But, oh, how I 
wished myself in my bed at home, with no view to speak of I for I 
had grown all burning-hot and ice-cold, not a square inch of me at 
the same temperature, and 'my head like a mall!' 

I got home, belter or worse, and went to bed, and lay, or rather 
tossed about, all night in a high fever, with a racking headache, 
severe sickness, and, most questionable of all, a bad sore throat. I 
only waited for Mr. Barnes being up to send for him, though he 
had given me up as a patient. Without having had a wink of sleep, 
however, or anything to do me good, my fever abated of itself as 
the morning advanced, aud, after having had some tea in bed, be- 
tween seven and eight, ' all very comfortable,' from the new woman, 
I felt so much better that I should have held my hand from sending 
for a doctor if it hadn't been for the sere throat, which continued 
very bad, and frightened me from its unusual nature. Mr. Barnes 
was out, and didu't come in to get the message till three o'clock, by 
which time I had transferred myself to the drawing-room sofa. 

Meanwhile, long before this, beiug still in bed, but washed and 
combed, and the room tidied up in expectation of Mr. Barnes, there 

was sent up to me the card of Madame ! two hours after I had 

read your wish that I should call for her! And I heard her voice 
in the passage! Isent down polite regrets in the first instance; then, 
thinking you would be vexed at my not admitting her, I called 
Charlotte (' Charlotte ' the second) back, and said, to tell the lady, 
if she wouldn't dislike coming to rce in my bedroom, that I should 
be glad to see her ' for a minute.' If I had known that she was to 
flop down on the bed, and cover my face with kisses (!) the first 
thing, I should have thought twice of admitting her, with Ihe sore 
throat I had! However, the thing was done! So I didn't say a 
word of sore throat to put infection in her head, and indeed I hoped 
it mightn't be of an infectious nature. As for the 'minute,' she 
prolonged it to an hour; talking with an emphasis, and an exagger- 
ation, and a velocity, and cordiality, which left me little to do but 
listen, and not scream! I will tell you all I remember of her talk 
when we meet. She will be again in London towards the end of 
October. She went off with the same, or rather redoubled, embrac- 
ings and kissings; I, purposely, holding in my breath; and when the 
door had closed, didn't I fall back on my pillows with a sense of 
relief! 

Mr. Barnes looked into my throat, and said it was bad ; but if I 
had ' courage to swallow the very ugliest, most extraordinary-look- 
ing medicine I had ever seen in this world, he thought he could 
cure it in a day or two;' and there came a bottle containing appar- 
ently bright blue oil-paint! I It did need courage, and faith, to take 
the first dose of that! But 'I did it, sir! ' and positively, as if by 
magic, my throat mended in half an hour! I had a good night; 
the throat was a little sore only in the morning. The second dose 
had the same magically sudden effect, and now, after three half- 
glassfuls of that magical blue oil-paint, my throat is perfectly 
mended, and I am as well as before I knocked myself up. 

Monday. — For the rest, all that has been said and writ ten about 
my turning back aud about my not starting again is kindly meant, 
but being said or written in total or in partial ignorance of the sub- 
ject, quite overshoots or undershoots the mark; is. in fact, perfect 
nonsense, setting itself up for superior sense! ' Why not have left 
you to " fen" for yourself, if you had come home in my absence?' 
your sister Jane asks; ' if she had been me, she would have done 
that.' And I would have done it if I had been she perhaps. 

Ever yours, J. W. C. 

LETTER 229. 

T. Carlyle, The Gill. 
6 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Monday, Sept. 17, 1860. 
You will open this, prepared to hear that I went to Forster's, ' 
and have been very ill in consequence. If there be a choice betwixt 
a wise thing and a foolish one, a woman is always expected to do 
the foolish. Well, I didn't! Very ill I have been, but not from 
going out to dinuer. By one o'clock that day I was quite ill 
enough to care no more for Fuz's wrath than for a whiff of tobacco! 
I had taken the influenza, and no doubt about it! So I despatched 
a message to Montagu Square, and another to Mr. Barnes; went to 
bed, aud have not slept till within the last hour! So provoking! 
I had been so much better, and hoped to be quite flourishing on 
your return. HowsomcUver an influenza properly treated, and an 
influenza allowed to treat itself, like all my former ones, is a very 
different affair I find. It has not been allowed to settle down on 
my chest at all, this one; aud, after only three days of sharp suffer- 
ing, here I am in the drawing-room, looking forward with some 
interest to the sweet bread I am to dine on, and writing you a let- 
ter better or worse. 

• Alluding to close of last letter, omitted. 



116 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



The new woman is a good nurse, very quiet and kindly, and 
with sense to do things without heing lold. I have not had my 
clothes folded neatly up, and the room tidied, and my wants 
anticipated in this way since I had no longer any mother to nurse 
me. In ordinary circumstances I should have felt it horrid to be 
lying entirely at the mercy of an utter stranger; but, being as she 
is, I have wished none else to come near me. Even you I rather 
hope may not come this week. It would worry me so, not to be 
able to run about when you come, and I must be cautious for'some 
days yet — 'Mrs. Prudence,' as Mr. Barnes calls me in mockery. 
The girl is to come to-morrow, but I don't feel to trouble my head 
about her. Charlotte (2nd) can be trusted to direct her in the way 
she should go till I am well enough to meddle. Besides I have 
every reason to believe her a nice girl. The old Charlotte, poor 
foolish tiling! is still hanging ouat her ' mother's,' just as untidy in 
her person, with nothing to do, as she used to be in her press of 
work. She has been much about me, and I don't know what I 
should have done without her, to cook for me, and show me some 
human kindness, when I was ill under ' Old Jaue.' But I am glad 
at the same time that I had fortitude to resist her tears, and her re- 
quest to be taken back as cook. I told her some day I might take 
her back; but she had much to learn and to unlearn first. Still it 
is gratifying to feel that one's kindness to the girl has not been all 
lost on her, for she really loves both of us passionately — only that 
passionate loves, not applied to practical uses, are good for so little 
in this matter-of-fact world. 

Kindest love to dear Mary. Tell her I will make out that visit 
some day, ou my own basis; it is only postponed. ' Thank God,' 
you can't get any clothes. 

Yours, 

J. W. C. 
LETTER 230. 

I seem to have got home again, September 22. Halted at Alder- 
ley a couple of days; of Annandale, the Gill, or Dumfries I re- 
member nothing whatever, except the last morning at the Gill 
(which is still vivid enough), and my wandering about in manifold 
sorrowful reflections, loth to quit that kindly, safe lurjurium ; and 
also privately my making resolution (seeing the fitness of it), not to 
revisit Scotland till the unutterable Frederick were done — resolu- 
tion sad and silent, which I believe was kept. — T. C. 

Mrs. Austin, The Gill, Annan. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea; Thursday. Oct. 19, 1860. 

My dear Mary,— The box arrived last night, 'all right.' Many 
thanks, Mary dear. The things from Dumfries are also all right; 
but I will write to tell Jane about them to-morrow. Mr. C. doesn't 
seem to have benefited from his long sojourn by the sea-side so 
much as I had hoped, and at first thought. He still goes on wak- 
ing up several times in the night — when he bolts up, and smokes, 
and sometimes takes a cold bath! And all that is very dismal for 
him, to whom waking betwixt lyiug down and getting up is a 
novelty. For me, my own wakings up some twenty or thirty times 
every night of my life, for years and years back, are nothing com- 
pared with hearing him jump out of bed overhead, once or some- 
times twice during a night. Before he went to Thurso, that sound 
overhead used to set my heart a-thumpiug to such a degree that I 
couldn't get another wink of sleep — and 1 was on the brink of a 
nervous fever when he left.' Now that my nerves have had a rest. 
and that I am more 'used to it,' I get to sleep again when I hear 
all quiet, but God knows how long I may be up to that! And 
when he has broken sleep, and I no sleep at all, it is sad work here, 
I assure you. 

You will have heard of my setting up a second servant, and 
think perhaps that I must be more comfortable now, with two peo- 
ple to work and run for us; but I would much rather have made 
less working and less running do, and kept to my accustomed one 
servant. I have never felt the house my own since my maid-of-all- 
work was converted into a ' cook ' and ' housemaid.' and don't feel 
as if I should ever get used to the improvement. It is just as if one 
had taken lodgers into one's lower story. Often in the dead of 
night I am seized with a wild desire to clear the house of these new- 
comers, and take back my one little Charlotte, who is still hanging 
on at her mother's, in a wild hope than one or other of them, or 
both, may break down, and she lie reinstated in her place. Poor 
little Charlotte! if I had seen how miserable she was to be at leav- 
ing us, I couldn't have found in my heart to put her way, though 
she was so heedless, and ' thro' other.' 2 with a grain of method she 
could have done all the two do, as well or better than they do it, 
she was so clever and willing. 

The new tall Charlotte (the cook) said to me one day ' little Char- 
lotte' had been here; ' What a fool that girl is, ma'am! I said to 
her to-day, "You seem to like being here!" and says she, " Of 
course I do; I look upon this as my home." " But," says I, "you 
are a nice-looking, healthy girl, you will easily get another place if 
you try." "Oh," says she, "I know that. I may get plenty of 
places; but I shall never get another home!" What a poor spirit 
the girl has! If anybody had been dissatisfied with me. it's little 
that! should care about 'leaving them.' 'I can well believe that,' 



Poor loving soul ! 



3 Durcheinander (German) as an adjective. 



said I, with a strong disposition to knock her down. But I have 
no pretext for putting the woman away — although I don't like her. 
She is a good servant as servants go, and I can't put her away 
merely for being vulgar-minded, and totally destitute of sentiment; 
and, after all, the faults for which I parted with little Charlotte 
after twelve months of considering won't have been cured, but 
rather have been aggravated by three months' muddling at her 
mother's. Heigh-ho! I feel just in the case of the ' Edinburgh meat- 
jack;' 'Once I was happ happ-happ-y ! but now I am mee-e-ser- 
able! ' If one's skin were a trifle thicker, all these worries would 
seem light. But one's skin being just no skin 'to speak of,' no 
wonder one falls into the meat-jack humour. God bless you and all 
your belongings. Kind regards to your husband. 

Ever affectionately yours, 

Jane W. Cabltlb. 

LETTER 231. 

To Miss Margaret Welsh, Auchterlool Manse. 

Chelsea: Decembers, 1M0. 

Dearest Maggie, — Having made no sign of myself for the last 
mouth, you may be fancying I have succumbed to the general 
doom ; seeing that it has been ' the gloomy month of November, in 
which the people of England hang and drown themselves!' But I 
am neither hanged nor drowned yet (in virtue perhaps of being born 
in Scotland); only, all my energies having been needed to stave off 
suicide, I had none left for letter-writing. It is now December, 
and the suicidal mania should have passed off; but I can't see much 
difference between this December and the gloomiest November on 
recordl the fog, and the mud, and the liquid soot (called rain in 
the language of flattery), have not abated ; and the blood in one's 
veins feels so thick and dirt}'! But, shame of my silence must 
serve instead of .inspiration, impossible under the circumstances; 
and you, dear, good little soul as you are, will not be critical! 

In the first place you will be glad to hear I am ' about ' anyhow. 
Except for one week that I had to lie on the sofa on my back, with ■ 
neuralgia (differing in nothing, so far as I can see, from the old- 
fashioned ' rheumatiz '), I have not been laid up since you heard of 
me; and I have had a great fret taken off me, in the removal 
of that vulgar, conceited woman, and the restoration of little Char- 
lotte. Upon my word. I haven't been as near what they call 'happy' 
for many a day as in the first flush of little Charlotte! She looked 
so bursting with ecstasy as she ran up and down the house, taking 
possession, as it were, of her old work, and as she showed in the 
visitors (uot her business, but she would open the door to them all 
the first time, to show herself, and receive their congratulations), 
that it was impossible not to share in her delighted excitement! 
Most of the people shook hands with her! and all of them said they 
were ' glad to see her back ' 1^ I had trusted that she would in time 
humanise the other girl, and that the two would be good friends, 
when the other girl got over the prejudices the woman who had left 
hud inspired her with! But it needed no time at all. Sarah was 
humanised, and the two sworn friends in the first half-hour I In 
the first half-hour Sarah had confided to Charlotte that, if I hadn't 
given the tall Charlotte warning, she (Sarah) would have given me 
warning, she disliked ' tall Charlotte ' so much! 

It is now three weeks since the new order of things; mistress and 
maid have subsided out of the emotional state into the normal one, 
but are still very glad over one another; and if the work of the 
house does not get done with as much order and method as under 
the tall Charlotte, it is done with more thoroughness, and infinitely 
more heartiness and pleasantness; and the 'bread-puddings' are 
first rate. Sarah's tidiness and method are just what were wanted 
to correct, little Charlotte's born tendency to muddle; while little 
Charlotte's willingness and affectiohateness warm up Sarah's drier, 
more selfish nature. It is a curious establishment, with something 
of the sound and character of a nursery. Charlotte not nineteen 
till next March, and Sarah seventeen last week. And they keep 
up an incessant chirping and chattering and laughing; and as both 
have remarkably sweet voices, it is pleasant to hear. The two-ness 
is no nuisance to me now. As neither can awake of themselves, I 
don't, know what I should have done about that, hadn't Charlotte's 
friends come to the rescue. An old man who lodges with Char- 
lotte's ' mother ' (aunt), raps on the kitchen window till he wakes 
them, every morning at six, on his way to his work ; and Charlotte's 
' father ' (uncle) raps again on the window before seven, to make 
sure the first summons had been attended to! to say nothing of an 
alarum, which runs down at six, at their very bed-head, and never 
is heard by either of these fortunate girls! So I daresay we shall 
get on as well as possible in a world where perfection is not to be 
looked for. I shall be glad to hear that your domesticities are in 
as flourishing a state! 

I hope we"shall go to the Grange by-and-by, and make a longer 
visit than last year. It is such a good break in the long, dreary, 
Chelsea winter, and stirs up one's stagnant spirits, and rules up 
one's manners! But Mr. Carlyle won't stay anywhere if he can't 
get work done; and though Lady Ashburton says he shall have 
every facility afforded him for working, I don't know how that will 
be when it comes to be tried. I never saw any work done in that 
house! Meanwhile, I have sent an azure blue moire, that Lady 
Sandwich gave me last Christmas Day. to be made, in case. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



117 



My dear, beautiful Kate Sterling (Mrs. Ross) was buried last week 
at Bournemouth, where she had beeu taken for the winter. I had 
long been hopeless of her recovery, but did not think the end so 
near, and that I should never see her sweet ft.ce again. Julia came 
to see me yesterday on her return, looking miserably ill. Poor Mr. 
Ross wrote me a sad, kind letter. I am very sorry for him; and 
none of the family treat him as if he had anything to do with their 
loss. He was not a man one would ever have wished Kate to 
marry, but he has been the most devoted husband, and tenderest 
nurse to her; and she said to her sister Lotta, the day before her 
death, that she had repented doing many things in her life, but she 
had never for one moment repented her marriage! Surely that 
should have made them all less hard for him! But, no! 

Kindest love to Walter and Star. 

Your affectionate 

J. W. Carlyle. 



4 



LETTER 233. 
Mrs. Russell, Thornhill. 



5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Dec. 31, 1860. 

Dearest Mary, — If there were no other use in a letter from me 
just now, it will serve the purpose of removing any apprehensions 
you may have as to the frost having put an end to my life! ' Did 
you ever?' 'No, I never, '-*felt such cold! But then, there be- 
ing no question for me of ever crossing the threshold, and my time 
thrown altogether on my hands (my visitors being mostly away, 
keeping their Christmas in country houses, or, like myself, shut up 
with colds at home, or too busy with ' the festivities of the season ' 
to get as far as Chelsea, and my two maids leaving me nothing 
earthly to do in the business of the house), I have time, enough and 
to spare, for adopting all possible measures to keep myself warm. 
To see the fires I keep up in the drawing-room and my bed- room! 
An untopographical observer might suppose we lived within a mile 
of a coal pit, instead of paying twenty-eight shillings a cart-load 
for coals! Then I wear all my flannel petticoats at once, and am 
having two new ones made out of a fair of Scotch blankets! 
And Lady Sandwich has sent me a seal-fur pelisse (a luxury 
I had long sighed for, but, costing twenty guineas, it bad 
seemed hopeless!), and a Greek merchants- has sent me the softest 
grey Indian shawl. And if all that can't warm me, I lie down 
under my coverlet of racoon skins! (My "dear! if you are perishing, 
act upon my idea of the Scotch blaukets; no flaunel comes near 
them in point of warmth.) My doctor told me, in addition to all 
thi^outward covering, to drink ' at least three glasses of wine a 
dayr But I generally shirk the third. And the cough, and face- 
ache, which I had the first week of the frost, is gone this week, at 
any rate. %► 

Have you seen that Tale of Horror, which ran through the news- 
papers, about the Marquis of Downshire? Everybody here believed 
for some days that the Marquis of Downshire had really found the 
skipper of his yacht kneeling at the side of Lady Alice (his only 
daughter, a lovely girl of seventeen), and really pitched him into 
the sea, and so there was an end of him! I was. dreadfully sorry, 
for one. Lord D. is such a dear, good, kind-hearted savage of a 
man; and it seemed such a fatality that he should be always killing 
somebody ! ! He had killed a school companion, without meaning 
it; and afterwards (they say) a coalheaver, who was boxing with 
him! The fact is, he is awfully strong, and his strokes tell, as he 
doesn't expect. But if you knew what a simple, good man he is, 
you wouldn't wonder that I felt sorrier for him than the skipper, 
who, after all, had no business to be ' kneeling' there surely! And 
the little darling daughter, that her young life should be clouded at 
the outset with such a scandal! I made all sorts of miserable re- 
flections about them all. And thcstory, all the while, a complete 
fabrication — equal to the proverbial story of the 'six black crows! 

f'he story was told to Azeglio (the Sardinian Ambassador), who, to 
iVe himself importance, said, ' Oh, yes! it had been officially com- 
municated to him from Naples.' And the man he said it to, being 
Secretary of Legation, made an official despatch of the story to 
Lord Cowley at Paris!! Then it flew like wild-fire v and people 
couldn't help believing it; and,, of course, all sorts of details were 
added — that Lady Alice was ' struggling and screaming, that Lord 
D. wouldn't let a boat be lowered to pick the man up,' &c. &c. 
One knows how a story gathers like a snowball. They went the 
length of stating that Lord D. was being brought home to be tried 
by the Peers, ' the offence having been committed on the high 
seas!!!' The talk now is all of prosecution of certain newspapers 
and certain people. But I shouldn't wonder if it all end in Lord 
Downshire's giving somebody a good thrashing. 

Please to give my good wishes ' of the season ' to all my friends 
at Thornhill and about, and to attend to the old women on New 
Year's Day. I send a cheque this time. The Japanese trays are 
for the new drawing-room, if you think them worth a place in it. 
I took them as far as Alderley on the road in autumn. They are a 
popular drawing-room ornament here at present. Kindest regards 
to the Doctor. 

Yeur ever affectionate 

Jane Carlyle. 



1 Dilberoglue. 



LETTER 233. 
To Miss Barnes, King's Road, Chelsea. 

5 Cheyne Kow: Sunday, April 86, 1861. 

Carina, — I was going to you to-day, having been hindered yester- 
day ; but a thought strikes me. You are a Puseyite, or, as my old 
Scotch servant writes it, a 'Puisht,' and I am a Presbyterian; 
would it be proper for you to receive me, or for me to pay a visit on 
Sunday V I don't quite know as to you; but for me it is a thing for- 
bidden certainly. So I write to say that if you could have gone to 
the gorillas to-morrow, the gorillas would have been ' not at home.' 
On consulting my order of admission I find it is for all days except 
just the two I successively fixed upon, Saturdays and Mondays. 
My order is available through all the month of May, so it will still 
be time when you return, provided you do not indefinitely extend 
your programme, as you are in the habit of doing. I shall fix with 
the others for Tuesday, 28th, early— say to start between eleven and 
twelve. Will that do? 

Your affectionate 

Jane Carlyle. 
LETTER 234. 
Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Thursday, July 3, 1861. 

Decidedly, dearest Mary, I am in a run of bad luck, and enter- 
taining for a moment any idea of pleasure seems to be the signal 
with me for some misfortune to plunge down. 

The longer I thought of it, the more it seemed to me fair and 
feasible that, since Mr. C. was minded to go nowhere this summer, 
I should go for two or three weeks by myself where I had been so 
unreasonably disappointed of going last August. Mr. C. himself 
said I might, 'if 1 thought it would be useful tome:' and there could 
be no question about its being ' useful to me ' to have a breath of 
Scotch air and a glimpse of dear Scotch faces. So, when I had 
read your cordial letter, I felt my purpose stroug to carry itself out, 
and only delayed answering till I had seen the baking difficulty 
overcome, and could say, positively, that I would come as soon as 
you pleased after your visitor had departed. Two visitors at one 
time is too much happiness, I think, for any not over strong mis- 
tress of a house, who gives herself so much trouble as you do to 
make everything comfortable and pleasant about one. 

And, in the meantime, here is what has befallen. My nice trust- 
worthy cook, who inspired me with the confidence to leave Mr. C, 
being certain, I thought, to keep him all right, and the house all 
right, and the young girl all right, in my absence; this treasure of 
a cook, my dear, who was to be the comfort of my remaining 
years, and nurse me in my last illness (to such wild flights bad my 
imagination gone), turns out to have come into my service with a 
frightful neglected disorder — what the doctors call ' strangulated 
hernia,' making her life (my doctor says) ' not safe for a day! ' He 
could do nothing with it, he said; she must go to St. George's 
Hospital, and what was possible to do for her would be done there. 
But I have no hope that the woman will ever be fit for service again. 
And what she could mean in going into a new service with such a 
complaint I am at a loss to conceive. And I am also dreadfully at 
a loss what I am to do with her. She is such a good creature, and 
hasn't a relation in the world to depend upon. If the'doctors take 
her as an in-patient, of course it would settle the question of her 
leaving here; but if they don't — ! Oh, my gracious, how unlucky 
it is! In any case, I see no chance for me now of getting to you. 

Unless! indeed, she could be cured sufficiently to go on at ser- 
vice. I shall know more about it when she comes back from the 
hospital, or when I have spoken with one of the surgeons there 
whom I know. But unless the case is much less grave than Mr. 
Barnes seemed to consider it, we shall be all at sea again. And the 
best arrangement I can think of, for the moment, would be to put 
my new housemaid into the kitchen, for which she is better suited 
than for her present place, only that she would have the cooking 
all to learn ! — and to take another nice girl I know of for house- 
maid. But fancy the weeks and months it will take to get even 
that most feasible scheme to work right, and all the while I must 
be standing between Mr. C. and new bother, and looking after these 
girls that they may be kept in good ways! I declare I could take a 
good cry, or do a little good swearing! 1 will stop now till the poor 
woman comes back from the hospital ; and then tell you the news 
she brings. 

No Matilda come yet, and I must take the letters myself now to 
the post-office, having nobody to send. 

I will write soon. 

Your much bedevilled, but always loving, 

J. Caelyle. 
LETTER 235. 

Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Tuesday, July 16, 1861. 
Dearest Mary, — Mr. Dunbar's ' hook was from you, was it not ? 
I used to be able to swear to your hand writing; but latterly one or 
two people have taken to writing exactly like you, and I need the 



' I don't recollect. 



118 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



post-mark to verify the handwriting, and the post-mark was illegi- 
ble on that book-parcel. Whether from you or not, I am glad of 
the little book, which I am sure I shall read with pleasure ; I like 
that mild, gentlemanly man so much. 

But I am still as tar as when I last wrote from sitting down 
quieily to read a pleasant book. Everything is at sixes and sevens 
still ! My treasure of a servant, who was to ' soothe my declining 
years,' and enable me to go to Scotland this year, is still lying in 
St. George's Hospital, certain to lie there ' for some months,' and 
not certain to be tit for service, even of the mildest form, when the 
months are over! Mr. , the Head Surgeon, found immediate- 
ly that she had got ulceration of the spine, and the rupture pro- 
ceeded from that. He says she ' may get over it ; but it will be a 
tedious affair.' I don't think that, even if she were cured nomi- 
nally, I should like to have her for kitchen servant again ; I should 
live in perpetual terror of her hurting herself at every turn. Mean- 
while I have been puddling on with my old 'going-out-to-cook- 
woman,' comiug daily to cook the dinner, and teach the Welsh 
housemaid, whom I have decided to make kitchen-woman, getting 
another girl for housemaid. A safe housemaid is so much easier 
to get here than a cook, who doesn't drink, nor steal, nor take the 
house to herself! This Welsh girl ' has, I think, more the shaping 
of a good cook than of a housemaid, not being good at needlework, 
anil utterly incapable of reading the titles on Mr. C.'s books, so 
that she can't bring him a book when he wants it. The girl I am 
getting is more accomplished, whatever else ! 

The present state of affairs is wretched; for Mr. C, being a man, 
cannot understand to exact the least bit less attendance, when we 
are reduced to one servant again, than he had accustomed himself 
to exact from the two. So I have all the valeting, and needle- 
womaniug, aud running up and down to the study for books, &c. 
&c. &c. to do myself, besides having to superintend the Welsh girl, 
and to go to St. George's (two miles off) almost every day in my 
life, to keep up the heart of poor Matilda, who, lying there, with 
two issues in her back, and nobody but myself coming after her, 
and her outlooks of the darkest, naturally needs any cheering that 
1 can take her. 

Mercifully the plentiful rain keeps things cooler and fresher here 
than is usual in summer; aud I am nothing like so sick and nervous 
as I was last year at this time. So I am more able to bear what is 
laid on me — to bear amongst the rest the heavy disappointment of 
having to give up my visit to you, aud stay here at my post, which 
is a rather bothering one. 

God bless you. It does me good anyhow to think that, if I could 
have gone, the kind Doctor aud you would have been so kind to 
me. Your ever affectionate 

J. W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 236. 

T. Carlyle, Exq., CJielsea. 

Mrs. Stokes's, 31 Wellington Crescent, East Cliff, Ramsgate: 

Sunday, August 4, 1861. 

That is the address, if there be anything to be addressed ! For- 
tune favors the brave ! Had one talked, and thought, and cor- 
responded, and investigated about lodgings for a month before 
starting, I doubt if we could have made a better business of it than 
we have done. Certainly in point of situation there is no better in 
Ramsgate or in the world: looking out over a pretty stripe of lawn 
and gravel walk on to the great boundless Ocean ! You could throw 
a stone from the sitting-room window into the sea when the tide is 
up ! Then there is not the vestige of a bug in our white dimity 
beds ! For the rest, I cannot say it is noiseless ! Geraldiue says 
her room looking on the sea is perfectly so ; but I consider her no 
judge, as she sleeps like a top. However, the rooms looking on the 
sea cannot but be freer from noise than those to the back, looking 
on roofs, houses, stables, streets, &c. ; but the bedrooms to the 
back are much larger, and better aired. With no sensibilities 
except my own to listeu to them with, I can get used (I think) to 
the not extravagant amount of crowing and barking, and storming 
with the wind, and even to occasional cat-explosions on the opposite 
roofs ! If I can't, I can exchange beds with Geraldine; and there I 
can only have the noise of the sea (considerable !), the possibilities 
of occasional carriages passing (I have none to day, hut it is Sun- 
day), and ' riltle-tippling' of Venetian blinds! With a great 
diminution of room, however, and alarming increase of glare. 
Tlie people of the house are civil and honest-looking and slow. 
Oli, my ! But we are not come here, Geraldine and I, to be in a 
hurry ! For us the place will answer extremely well for a week, 
that, we had to engage it for. and the sea air and the 'change' will 
overbalance all the little disagreeables, as well as the cha-arge, 
which is considerable. 

If my advice were of any moment. I would strongly advise you 
to come one day during the week, and see the place under our 
auspices, and stay one night. I could sleep on the sofa in the 
drawing-room; and you would not mind any trifling noises with the 



1 Irish in reality; a little, black, busy creature, who did very well for some 
tim9; but. <S:c &c. (some mysterious love-affair, I think) — and went to New 
Zealand out of sight. 



knowledge that it was only for one night. The mere journey and 
a sight of the sea and a bathe would do you good. 

I am going to seek out the Bains after church. I feel much less 
tired to-day thau I have done for weeks, mouths back ; and though 
I was awake half the night, first feeling for bugs, which didn't 
come! and then taking note of all the different sounds far and near, 
which did come ! 

Margaret will do everything very well for you, if you will only 
tell her distinctly what you want ; I mean not elaborately, but in 
few plain words. 

Ever yours, 

Jake W. C. 

LETTER 237. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., 5 Cheyne Bow. 
Wellington Crescent, Ramsgate: Tuesday, August 6, 1861. 

1 Very charming doesn't that look, with the sea in front as far 
as eye can reach ? And that seen (the East Cliff), you needn't 
wish to ever see more of Ramsgate. It is made up of narrow, 
steep, confused streets like the worst parts of Brighton. The 
shops look nasty, the people nasty, the smells are nasty I (spoiled 
shrimps complicated with cesspool I) Only the East Cliff is clean, 
and genteel, and airy ; aud would be. perfect as sea-quarters if it 
weren't for the noise ! which is so extraordinary as to be almost 
laughable. 

Along that still-looking road or street between the houses and 
gardens are passing and repassing, from early morning to late 
night, cries of prawns, shrimps, lollipops — things one never wanted, 
and will never want, of the most miscellaneous sort; and if that 
were all! But a brass band plays all through our breakfast, and 
repeats the performance often during the day, and the brass band 
is succeeded by a band of Ethiopians, and that again by a band of 
female fiddlers! and interspersed with these are individual barrel- 
organs, individual Scotch bagpipes, individual French horns! Oh, 
it is ' most expensive ! ' And the night noises were not to be esti- 
mated by the first night! These are so many and frequent as to 
form a sort of mass of voice; perhaps easier to get some sleep 
through than an individual nuisance of cock or dog. There are 
hundreds of cocks! and they get waked up at, say, one in the 
morning by some outburst of drunken song or of cat-wailing! aud 
never go to sleep again (these cocks) but for minutes! and 
there are three steeple clocks that strike in succession, and there 
are doors and gates that slam, and dogs that bark occasionally, and 
a saw mill, and a mews, &c. — in short, everything you could wish 
not to bear! And I hear it all and am getting to sleep in hearing 
it! the bed is so soft and clean, and the room so airy; and then I 
think under every shock, so triumphantly, 'Crow away,' 'roar 
away,' ' bark away,' ' slanVaway ; you can't disturb Mr. C. at 
Cheyne Row, that can't you! ' aud the thought is so soothing, I go 
off asleep — till next thing! I might try Geraldine's room ; but she 
has now got an adjoining baby! Yesterday we drove to Broad- 
stairs — a quieter place, but we saw no lodgings that were likely to 
be quiet, except one villa at six guineas a week, already occupied. 

I sleep about, in intervals of the bands, on sofas during the day; 
and am less sick than when I left home, and we get good enough 
food very well cooked, and I don't repent coming, on the whole; 
though 1 hate being iu lodgings in strange places. 

I found the Bains; and saw Mrs. George s before she left. 

Wednesday, Aug. 7, 1861. 

I had just cleared my toilet-table, and carried my writing-thinsrs 
from the sitting-room to my bedroom window, where there was no 
worse noise for the moment than carpet beating and the grinding 
of passing carts, whereas the sitting-room had become perfectly 
maddening with bagpipes under the windows, aud piano practice 
under the floor (a piano hired in by ' the first floor, yesterday)! 
All which received an irritating finishing touch from the rapid, 
continuous scrape, scraping of Geraldine's pen (nothing more irri- 
tating, as you know, than to see 'others' perfectly indifferent to 
what is driving oneself wild). Had just dipped the pen in the ink 
when — a 'yellow scoundrel,' the loudest, harshest of yellow scoun- 
drels, struck up under my bedroom window! And here the master 
power of Babbage has not reached! Indeed, noise seems to be the 
grand joy of life at Ramsgate. If I had come to Ramsgate with 
the least idea of writiug letters, or doing anything whatever with 
my head, I might go back at once. But I came to swallow down 
as much sea air as possible, and that end is attained without 
fatigue; for lying on the sofa with our three windows wide open 
on the sea, we are as well aired as if we were sailing on it; and the 
bedroom is full of sea air all night too. It is certainly doing me 
good, though I can't ever get slept many minutes together for the 
noises. I get up hungry for breakfast, and am hungry again for 
dinner — and a fowl does not serve Geraldine and me two days! I I 
do hope you are getting decently fed. It won't be for want of as- 
siduous will on Margaret's part if things are not as you like them. 

We called for the Bains last night and invited them to tea to- 
night, which they thankfully accepted. They seem entirely oc- 



> Written on Ramsgate note-paper, with a print of the harbour, &a 
3 Welsh; her uncle's wife. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLTLE. 



119 



cupicd in studying their mutual health. Indeed, what else would 
any mortal slay here for! Mrs. Bain is quite the female of that 
mule, — clear aud clever, and cold and dry as tinder! They have 
'the only quiet house in Ramsgate.' Mrs. Bain is troubled with 
nothing'but the bleating of sheep to the back; after to-day, how- 
ever, there will be crying the babies in the house, aud it is nothing 
like so airy a situation as ours. What a mercy you did not try 
Ramsgate! 

My compliments to the maids, and' say I hope to find them 
models of virtue and activity when I come on Saturday. Geral- 
dine is clear for staying another week; but I had better have gone 
to Scotland than that- 

Yours, 

J. W. C. 
LETTER 238. 
Mrs. Russell, Ilolm Hill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Tuesday, Aug. 30, 186). 

Darling! I want to hear about you; aud that is lucky for you, if 
you he at all wanting to hear about me! For I'll be hanged if mere 
unassisted sense of duty, and that sort of thing, could nerve me to 
•it down and write a letter in these days, when it takes pretty well 
all the sense and strength I have left to keep myself soul and body 
together, doing the thing forced into my hands to do, and answer- 
ing when I am spoken to. A uice woman I am! But I know you 
have been in such depths yourself occasionally, and will have sym- 
pathy with me, instead of being contemptuous or angry, as your 
strong-minded, able-bodied women would be; and accordingly 
itrong-minded, able-bodied women are my aversion, and I run out 
of the road of one as I would from a mad cow. The fact is, had 
there been nobody in the world to consider except myself, I ought 
to have ' carried out ' that project I had set my heart on of streaming 
off by myself to Holm Hill, and taking a life-bath, as it were, in 
my quasi natural air, in the scene of old affections, not all past and 
gone, but some still there as alive and warm, thank God, as ever! 
and only the dearer for being mixed up with those that are dead 
and gone. 

Ah, my dear, your kindness goes to my heart, and makes me 
like to cry, because I cannot do as you bid me. My servants are 
pretty well got into the routine of the house now, and if Mr. C. 
were like other men, he might be left to their care for two or 
three weeks, without fear of consequences. But he is much more 
like a spoiled baby than like other men. I tried him alone for a 
few days, when I was afraid of falling seriously ill, unless I had 
change of air. Three weeks ago I went with Geraldine Jewsbury 
to Ramsgate, one of the most accessible sea-side places, where I 
was within call, as it were, if anything went wrong at home. But 
the letter that came from him every morning was like the letter of 
a Babe in the Wood, who would be found buried with dead leaves 
by the robins if I didn't look to it. So, even if Ramsgate hadn't 
been the horridest, noisiest place, where I knew nobody, and had 
nothing to do except swallow sea air (the best of sea air indeed), I 
couldn't have got stayed there long enough to make it worth the 
bother of going. I had thought, in going there, that if he got on 
well enough by himself for the few days, I might take two or three 
weeks later, and realise my heart's wish after all. But I found him 
so out of sorts on my return that I gave it up, with inward protest 
and appeal to posterity. 

Again a glimmer of hope arose. Lady Sandwich had taken a 
Tilla on the edge of Windsor Forest for a month, and invited us to 
go with her there. Mr. C. is very fond of that old lady, partly for 
her own sake, and partly for the late Lady Ashburton's (her 
daughter). He can take his horse with him there, and his books, 
and if he miss his sleep one night he can come straight home the 
next. So, on the whole, after much pressing, he consented to go. 
And the idea came to me, if he were all right there, might not I 
slip away meanwhile to you. Before however it had been com- 
municated, he said to me one day; ' What a poor, shivering, ner- 
vous wretch I am grown! I declare if you were not to be there to 
take care of me, and keep all disturbance off me, nothing would in- 
duce me to go to that place of Lady Sandwich's, though I daresay 
it is very necessary for me to go somewhere.' Humph! very flat- 
tering, but very inconvenient. And one can't console oneself at 
my age for a present disappointment with looking forward to next 
year, one is no longer so sure of one's next year. 

One thing I can do, and you can do — we can write oftener. It 
is a deal nicer to speak face to face from heart to heart. But 
we might make our correspondence a better thing than it is, if 
we prevented the need of beginning our letters so often with an 
apology for silence. 

Thanks for all your news. Every little detail about Thorn- 
hill people and things is iuteresting to me. And, oh, many, many 
thanks for your kind messages to us all! God bless you, dear, and 
love to the Doctor. Affectionately yours, 

Jane W. Carlyle. 



LETTER 239. 

The good old dowager Lady Sandwich had this autumn engaged 
us to go out with her to a pretty little lodge she had hired for a 



while in Windsor Forest, to rusticate there. It struck us after- 
wards, she had felt that this was likely to be her last autumn in 
this world, and that we, now among the dearest left to her, ought 
to be there. She was a brave, airy, affectionate, and bright kind 
of creature; and under her Irish gaieties and fantasticalities con- 
cealed an honest generosit}' of heart, aud a clear discernment, and 
a very firm determination in regard to all practical or essential 
matters. We willingly engaged, went punctually, and stayed, I 
think, some twelve or more days, which, except for my own con- 
tinual state of worn-out nerves, &c, were altogether graceful, 
touching, and even pleasant. I rode out, and rode back (my Jean- 
nie by railway both times). Windsor Forest sounded something 
Arcadian when I started, but, alas! I found all that a completely 
changed matter since the days of Pope and his sylvan eclogues; 
and the real name of it uow to be Windsor Cockneydom unchained. 
The ride out was nowhere pleasant, in parts disgusting; the ride 
back I undertook merely because obliged. During my stay I rode 
daily a great deal; but except within the park, where was a 
gloomy kind of solitude, very gloomy always to me, I had nowhere 
any satisfaction in the exercise, nor did Fritz seem to have. Alas! 
both he and I were getting very sick of riding; and one of us was 
laden for a long while past and to come far beyond his strength 
and years. It seems by this letter I was at times a very bad boy; 
and, alas! my repentant memory answers too clearly Yes. The 
lumbago, indeed. I have entirely forgotten, but I remember nights 
sleepless, and long walks, the mornings after which were cou- 
rageous rather than victorious! I remember the old lady's stately 
and courteous appearance at dinner, affecting to me, and strange, 
almost painful. This little scene even to the very name had van- 
ished from me, and Harewood Lodge, when I read it here, reads a 
whole series of things to me; things sad — now sad as death itself, 
but good too, perhaps, almost great. 

Miss Barnes, King's Road, Chelsea. 

Harewood Lodge, Berks: Sept. 22, 1861. 

Carina! Oh, Carina! 'Did you ever?' 'No, you never!' It 
has been an enchantment — a bad spell! the ' qnelque chose plus fort 
que moi' of French criminals! I don't think a day has passed 
since I got your letter — certainly not a day has passed since I came 
here — that I haven't thought of you; and meant to write to you: 
only I never did it! And why? Were I to assign the only reason 
which occurs to me for the moment, it would seem incredible to 
your well-regulated mind. You could never conceive how a 
woman ' born of respectable parents, and having enjoyed the ad- 
vantages of a liberal education' (like Judge somebody's malefactor, 
who, ' instead of which, had gone about the country stealing tur- 
keys! '), should be withheld from doing a thing by just the feeling 
that she ought to ! Although if she had ought not to she would 
have done it at the first opportunity! No! You have no belief in 
such a make of a woman, you! You are too good for believing in 
her! And one can't do better than believe all women boru to a 
sense of duty ' as the sparks fly upwards' as long as one can. 

For the rest, I should have enjoyed this beautiful place exces- 
sively if Eve hadn't eaten that unfortunate apple, a great many 
years ago; in result of which there has, ever since, been always a 
something to prevent one's feeling oneself in Paradise! The 
' something' of the present occasion came in the form of lumbago! 
not into my own back, but into Mr. C.'s; which made the difference 
so far as the whole comfort of my life was concerned! For it was 
the very first day of being here that Mr. C. saw fit to spread his 
pocket-handkerchief on the grass, just after a heavy shower, and 
sit down on it! for an hour and more in spite of all my remon- 
strances! ! The lumbago following in the course of nature, there 
hasn't been a day that I felt sure of staying over the next, and of 
not being snatched away like Proserpine; as I was from the Grange 
last winter! For what avail the 'beauties of nature,' the 'ease 
with dignity' of a great house, even the Hero Worship accorded 
one, against the lumbago? Nothing, it would seem! less than noth- 
ing! Lumbago, my dear, it is good that you should know in time, 
admits of but one consolation — of but one happiness! viz. : ' perfect 
liberty to be as ugly and stupid and disagreeable as ever one likes!' 
And that consolation, that happiness, that liberty reserves itself for 
the domestic hearth! As you will find when you are married, I 
daresay. And so. all the ten days we have been here, it has been a 
straining on Mr. C.'s part to tear his way through the social ameni- 
ties back to Chelsea; while I have spent all the time I might have 
been enjoying myself in expecting to be snatched away! 

To-morrow we go finally and positively, though the lumbago is 
almost disappeared, and we were to have stayed at least a fortnight. 
Where are you, then? If you are returned to 'the paternal roof,' 
no need almost of this letter. But I dare say you are gadding about 
on the face of the earth ; ' too happy in not knowing your happiness ' 
of having a paternal roof to stay under! If your father would take 
me home for his daughter, and pet me as he does you, would I go 
dancing off to all points of the compass as you do? No, indeed. 
God bless you, anyhow! If you are returned, this letter will be 
worth while, as enabling me to look you in the face more or less. 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane Welsh Cablylk. 



120 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



LETTER 240. 

January 1, 1862. — 'First foot,' perhaps explained already, is a 
Scotch superstition about good or ill luck for the whole year being 
omened by your liking or otherwise of the first person that accosts 
you on New Year's morning. She well knew this to be an idle 
babble; but nevertheless it had got hold of her fancy in a sort, 
and was of some real importance to her, as other such old super- 
stitious were. Thus I have seen her, if anybody made or received 
a present of a knife, insist on a penny being given for it, that so it 
might become "purchase,' and not cut the friendship in two. I 
used to laugh at these practices, but found them beautiful withal; 
how much more amiable than strong-mindedness (which has needed 
only deduction of fine qualities) in regard to such things! — T. C. 

J. O. Cooke, Esq. 

5 Cheyne Row: January 1, 1862. 
Ach Gott! 
My dear Friend, — What an adorable little proceeding on your 
part! I declare I can't remember when I have been as pleased. 
Not only a 'good first foot,' but salvation from any possibility of a 
'bad first foot,' with which my highly imaginative Scotch mind 
(imaginative on the reverse side of things in my present state of 
physical weakness) had been worry itself as New Year's Day drew 
near. I could hardly believe my ears when little Margaret glided 
to my bedside and said, ' Mr. Cooke, ma'am, with this letter and 
beautiful egg-cup (!) for you; but he wouldn't come up. as you 
were in bed!' That, too, was most considerate of Mr. Cooke ! The 
' egg-cup ' ravished my senses with its beauty and perfect adaptation 
to my main passion. I think you must have bad it made on pur- 
pose for me, it feels already so much a part of myself. And how 
early you must have risen to be here at that hour! Dressed, per- 
haps, by candle-light! Good God! all that for me! Well, I am 
grateful, and won't forget this. A talismanic remembrance to 
stand between my faith in your kindness for me and any ' babbles ' 
(my grandfather's word) that may ever attempt, consciously or 
unconsciously, to shake it. And so God bless you! and believe 
me Yours affectionately. 

Jane Welsh Carlyle. 

LETTER 241. 
Miss Barnes, King's Road, Chelsea. 

5 Cheyne Row: January 24, 1862. 

Oh, you agonising little girl ! How could you come down upon 
me in that slap-dash way, demand of poor, weak, shivery me a 
positive 'yes' or ' no ' as if with a loaded pistol at my head? How 
can I tell what I shall be up to on the 18th? After such a three 
months of illness, and relapses, how can I even guess? If I am 
alive, and able to stand on my hind legs, and to look like a joyful 
occasion, I shall be only too happy to attend that solemnity. But 
in my actual state it would be a tempting of Providence to suppress 
the if in my acceptance of your 'amiable invitation.' 

As for Mr. C. — my dear, I must confide to you a small domestic 
passage. I told him what your father had said weeks ago, and he 
expressed himself as terrified — as was to be expected — at the idea 
of his being included in anything joyful! and I thought he had for- 
gotten all about it, three or four days after, when he came into my 
room with evidently something on his mind, and said, ' My dear, 
there is a small favour I want from you. I want you to not let me 
be asked to Miss Barues's marriage, for it would be a real vexation 
to me to refuse that bonnie wee lassie what she asked, and to her 
marriage I could not go; it would be the ruin of me for three 
weeks!' And that is no exaggeration, I ran say, who know his 
ways better than anyone else. He added that, ' the rational thing 
to be done,' was, that you should ' bring your husband, when you 
had married him, to spend an evening with him (Mr. C.) in his own 
house, among quiet things ' (me and the cat?). 

Your affectionate 

Jane W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 242. 

Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Feb. 23, 1862. 
Oh, my dear, what a horrid thing! ' It still makes my flesh creep 
all over whenever I think of it! and I think of it agrcat'deal oftener 
than there is occasion for, since, thank God, he is now on foot 
again! But I have seen that safe! I can appreciate to the full 
the crash of its lid, smack down on human fingers! Mercy! what 
a piece of capital good stuff the Doctor must have been made of 
originally, that bis fingers should have stuck together through such 
an accident, instead of being all pounded into mush! That is not 
what surprises me most, however, in the business. What surprises 
me most is, that the Doctor being a doctor, and a good, skilful one, 
should have gone about after, braving such a hurt, as though he 
had never in his life heard of lockjaw, or gangrene, or fever! I 
don't wonder that you were terrified. I wonder rather that you 
are not, now when your nursing is no more needed, in a brain fever 

1 Some accident which had befallen Dr. Russell. 



yourself. The longer T live the more I am certified that men, in 
all that relates to their own health, have not common sense! 
whether it be their pride, or their impatience, or their obstinacy, or 
their ingrained spirit of contradiction, that stupefies and misleads 
them, the result is always a certain amount of idiocy, or distraction 
in their dealings with their own bodies! I am not generalising from 
my own husband. I know that he is a quite extravagant example 
of that want of common sense in bodily matters which I complain 
of. Few men (even) are so. lost to themselves as to dry their soaked 
trowsers on their legs! (as he does) or swallow five grains of mer- 
cury in the middle of the day, and then walk or ride three hours 
uuder a plunge of rain! (as he does) &c. &c. But men generally, 
all of them I have ever had to do with — even your sensible husband 
included, you see — drive the poor women, who care for them, to 
despair, either by their wild impatience of bodily suffering, and the 
exaggerated moan they make over it, or else by their reckless defiance 
of it, and neglect of every dictate of prudence! There! You may 
tell the Doctor what I say! It won't do him the slightest good 
against next time ; but it is well he should know what one thinks of 
him — that one does not approve of such costly heroism at all ! 

I have nothing new to tell you which is lucky; as the things that 
have happened this long time back have been of a disastrous sort. 

I go out now occasionally for a drive — walking tires me too much. 
I have even been twice out at dinner last week, and was at a wedding 
besides! The two dinners were of the quietest: at the one (Miss 
Baring's), nobody but Lord Ashburton, who had come up from the 
Grange for a consultation; at the other (Lady Sandwich's), nobody 
but the Marchioness of Lothian, who, having lived thirty years in 
Scotland, is as good as a Scotchwoman. But the wedding 1 was an 
immense affair! It was my doctor's little daughter, who was being 
married, after a three years' engagement; and as soon as she was 
engaged, she had made me promise to attend her wedding. I had 
rather wished to see a marriage performed in a church with all the 
forms, the eight bridesmaids, &c. &c. But I had renounced all 
idea of going to the church, for fear of being laid up with a fresh 
cold; and meant to attend only the breakfast party after, in which I 
took less interest. But imagine how good the people here are to 
me. Our rector, in whose church (St. Luke's) the marriage was to 
take place, being told by his wife I wished to go, but durstn't for 
fear of the coldness of the church, ordered the fires to be kept up 
from Sunday over into Tuesday morning! besides a rousing fire in 
the vestry, where I sat at my ease till the moment the ceremony 
began! I was much pressed afterwards to acknowledge how 
superior the English way of marrying was to the Scotch, and asked 
how I had liked it. I said my feelings were very mixed. ' Mixed? ' 
the rector asked, ' mixed of what? ' . ' Well,' I said, ' it looked to 
me something betwixt a religious ceremony and a — pantomime!' 
So it is. There were fort^-four people at the breakfast! 

Your ever affectionate 

J. W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 243. 

• Mrs. Russell, Ilolm Hill. , 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Thursday, June 5, 1863. 

Dearest Mary,— I cannot count the letters I have written to you 
in my head within the last six weeks, they have been so many; I 
have" written them mostly before getting out of bed in the morning, 
or while lying awake at iiight. But in the day-time, with pen and 
ink at hand, I have been always, always, always too sick or too 
bothered to put them on paper, have indeed been writing to nobody, 
if that be any excuse for not writing to you. The beginning of 
warm weather is as trying for me, in a different way, as winter 
was, and so many sad things have happened. 

Just when the freshness of one sorrow was wearing off, there 
has come another. First Elizabeth Pepoli, then Lady Sandwich, 
then Mrs. Twisleton : a the three people in all Loudon whose 
friendship I had most dependence on. Nobody will believe the 
loss Lady Sandwich is to us. They say ' a woman of eighty ! that 
is not to be regretted.' But her intimate friends know that this 
woman of eighty was the most charming companion and the loyal- 
est, warmestl' riend ; was the only person in London or in the world 
that Mr. C. went regularly to see. Twice a week he used to call 
for her; and now his horse makes for her house whenever he gets 
into the region of Grosvenor Square, and does not see or under- 
stand the escutcheon that turns me sick as I drive past. Dear little 
Mrs. Twisleton, so young, and beautiful, and clever, so admired in 
society and adored at home, is a loss that everyone can appreciate! 
And the strong affection she testified for me, through her long ter- 
rible illness, has made her death a keener grief than I thought it 
would be. 

I should have been thankful to be away from here— anywhere — 
at the bottom of a coal-pit, to think over this in quiet, safe from 
the breaking in of all the idlers 'come up' to that great vulgar 
show of an 'Exhibition,' and safe from the endless weary chatter 
about it. Nothing could keep me here for an hour but Mr. C.'s 

i l^amos's 

- A very beautiful and clever little Boston lady, wife of Hon. Edward 
Twisleton, and much about us for the six or seven years she lived here. I 
well remember her affecting funeral (old Fiennes Castle, in Oxfordshire), and 
my ride thither with Browning, Ac. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



121 



determination to stay; — since at the top of the house lie is safe 
enough from tiresome interruptions, simply refusing to see any- 
body, which, alas! makes it all the more needful for me to be civil. 
Here he will stay and work on; (what an idea you have all got in 
your heads, that, having published a third volume he must be at 
ease in Zion, when two more volumes are to come, and one wholly 
unwritten;) and to leave him in the present state of things is what 
I cannot make up my mind to. If I go on in this way, however, I 
shall die, and just before it comes to that extremity I shall probably 
muster the necessary resolution. 

Mr. C.'s comfort under the confusion of the Exhibition is that 
' It is in be hoped it will end in total bankruptcy.' They say the 
guarantees will be called on to pay twenty-five per cent. 

Kindest love to the doctor; a hearty kiss to yourself. 

Yours affectionately, 

Jake W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 244. 

We were with the Ashburtons, she first, for a week or more, then 
both of us for perhaps a week longer. Ay de mi! (October 29, 
1869.) 

To Thomas Carlyle, Chelsea. 

West Cliff Hotel: Wednesday, July 2, 1862. 

Thanks, dear! especially for telling me about Mrs. Forster. I 
had been so vexed at myself for not begging you to go again and 
send me word. 

Lady A. came and sat awhile in my room last night, and, speak - 
ing of Miss Bromley's departure, I took occasion to say that, ' As 
she and I came on the same day, I felt as if I ought to have also 
gone on the same day.' The answer to which was a very cordial 
'Nonsense, my dear friend!' I was expected to stay as long as 
they did, ' or ' (when I shook my head at that) ' as long at all events 
as I could possibly make it convenient.' There was no doubt 
whatever about her present wish being to that effect. And then 
came up the old question as a new one, ' Did I think he would 
come? It would be such a pleasure to Bingham, now that he could 
move about.' I said, you might perhaps be persuaded to come for 
a very short visit, but, &c. &c. That was it ! A short visit was 
evidently what she wanted, and she does want that; but she did 
not see her way through a long one, in the circumstances I could 
see, and I don't wonder. She would write herself to-day, and 
urge you to come on Saturday and stay till Monday — ' You might 
surely do that! ' 

Now that is just what you must do. Even two days of sea will 
benefit you; and it can be had at little sacrifice of anything. You 
don't need to trouble about clothes; what you could bring in your 
carpet-bag would be enough; there is no elaborate dressing for 
dinner here; and the tide is convenient, and there is a horse! And 
Lady A. says she can give you ' a perfectly quiet room : ' — indeed, 
mine is quiet as the grave from outside noises; not a cock nor a 
dog in all Folkestone I think 1 And the cookery, which is objected 
to as all too English, would suit you: — constant loins of roast mut- 
ton, and constant boiled chickens! Now pray take no counsel with 
flesh and blood, but come straight off on Saturday morning, ac- 
cording to the invitation that will reach you (I expect) along with 
this. And in all likelihood we will go home together on Monday. 

If you don't come, I will stay away as long as ever they will 
keep me, just to spite you! 

Look up in your topographical book for Saltwood Castle. Lady 
A. asked, when we were there to-day, if I thought you would be 
able to tell us about it; and I said, 'Of course you would:' Salt- 
wood Castle, near Folkestone. 

There is here too a review of 'Frederick' in the 'Cornhill,' 
which would amuse you! Adoring your genius, but absolutely 
horror-struck at your 'scorn,' which is 'become normal.' How 
you dare to utter such blasphemy against Messrs. Leibnitz and 
Maupertius ! ! I could not help bursting out laughing at the man's 
sacred horror, as if he had been speaking of Milton's Devil! 

Yours ever, 

J. W. C. 



Horrible paper ! I have no other. 



LETTER 245. 
Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill. 

5 Ctaeyne Row, Chelsea: July 20, 1862. 

Dearest Mary, — When you wrote last you were going somewhere 
— to see your cousin, I think. Is that visit paid? and what other 
visits have you to pay? And how are you? I fear but poorly from 
your late letters; but are you well enough to feel any pleasure in — 
in — in seeing me if I should come? 

Look here! I am not sure about it! But Mr. C. said something 
this morning that I am determined to view as permission for me 
to go away by myself — where I please and when I please for a very 
little while. We had got into words about an invitation to the 
Marquis of Lothian's, in Norfolk. I had written a refusal by his 
(Mr. C.'s) desire, and Lady Lothian had written to me a second 
letter, holding out as inducements for altering his mind that there 



was a wonderfully fine library at Blickling Park, and that Lord 
Lothian's health prevented company; and Mr. C, tempted a little 
by the library and the no company, had suggested I might write 
that if the weather got unbearable! and if he got to a place in his 
work where he could gather up some papers and take them with 
him! and if — if — if ever so many things, he might perhaps — that is, 
we might perhaps — come 'by and by' !!! I had said 'by no 
means. I have written a refusal by your desire; I shall gladly now 
write an acceptance by your desire; but neither yes nor no, or yes 
and no both in one, I can't and won't write; you must do that sort 
of thing yourself!' And then he told me, ' Since I was so im- 
patient about it,' I had better go by myself. To which I answered 
that it wouldn't be there that I would go by myself, nor to the 
Trevelyans, nor the Davenport Bromleys; but to Scotland to Mrs. 
Russell. ' Then go to Mrs. Russell — pack yourself up and be off 
as soou as you like.' 

Now it wasn't a very gracious permission, still it was a permission 
— at least I choose to regard it as such; and if I had been quite sure 
how you were situated — whether you were at home, without other 
visitor, well enough to be bothered with me, &c. &c, I should have 
said on the spot, ' Thanks! I will go then on such a day! ' 

I know to my sorrow that, if I should be long absent, things 
would go to sixes and sevens, and I should find mischievous habits 
acquired in the kitchen department, which it would take months to 
reform — if ever. But my week at Folkestone with the Ashburtons 
passed off with impunity; — and their (the servants') moralities might 
surely hold out for a fortnight or so; which would give plenty of 
time to see you, and look about on the dear old places, and go round 
by Edinburgh for a kiss of old Betty. 

You see how it is, however, for I have told you exactly what 
passed; — and you see it is not a very settled question. Without 
further speech with Mr, C. I can't just say, ' I am coming if you 
will have me!' But if you say you will have me, can have me 
soon, without inconvenience ; then I will myself open the further 
speech and ascertain if he means to stand to his word, and look 
favourably on my going for a week or two. 

I say forgive me coming to you, year after year, with these in- 
decisions. Next to being undecided oneself the greatest misery is 
to be mixed up with undecided people. I myself know always 
mighty well what I want; and buts and ifs and possiblys are not 
words" in rny natural vocabulary, for all so often as I am obliged to 
use them. If I plague you with my uncertainties, believe me I 
plague myself quite as much or more. 

Affectionately yours, 

J. Carlyle. 

LETTER 246. 

Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Saturday, Aug. 2, 1862. 
Dearest Mary, — Your letter of this morning had the same effect 
that a glass of port wine, administered in my babyhood, was recorded 
to have had on a less dignified organ : ' Port wine ' (I was said to have 
said to my mother, with the suddenness of Balaam's ass) ' mak's 
inside a' cozy!' So indeed did your cordial letter mak' heart a' 
cozy. On the strength of the coziness, I said right out to Mr. C, 
sitting opposite: 'How long had you to wait at Carlisle for the 
train that put you down at the Gill at seven in the morning? ' No. 
opening could have been better. He was taken quite by surprise; 
and, before he had time to consider my going as a question, he 
found himself engaged in considerations of the best way to go. 
After that he could not well go back upon his implied assent.' 
The only ' demurrer ' he could put in, with a good grace, was to 
ask: 'What did I mean to do with my foot? ' I meant it to get 
well, I said, in a few days; of course I shouldn't think of going 
from home on one leg. This related to a bruised, or sprained, or 
someway bedevilled foot, that I came by the very day I had written 
to you, as if, I almost felt, with a shudder at the time, it was the 
monition of Providence that I should go on no such journey. I 
was returning from Islington where I had been to ask after the 
lamed foot (!) of the little lady who was my honorary nurse 5 last 
winter. The Islington omnibus put me down within some eighth 
part of a mile of my own house. I had one rather dark street to 
pass through first — taking the shortest way — and it was near eleven 
o'clock at night. I didn't care for being alone so late ; but I didn't 
want to be seen by any of the low people of that street alone. So I 
stepped off the pavement to avoid passing close to a small group 
standing talking at a door; when I had cleared these only people to 
be seen in the whole street, I was stepping back on to the pavement, 
when, the curbstone being higher than I noticed in the shadow, I 
struck the side of my right foot violently against it and was tripped 
over, and fell smack down, full length on the pavement. 3 

Considering how easily I might have broken my ribs, it is won- 
derful that the fall did me no harm. I scrambled up directly; but 
the foot I had struck on the curbstone before falling was dreadfully 
sore, and it was made worse, you may believe, by having to use it, 
after a sort, to get myself home. How I got home at all, even in 

1 Alas ! how little did I ever know of these secret wishes and necessities— 
now or ever! 
3 Mrs. Dilberoglue (?). * I remember, and may well. 



122 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



holding on to walls and railings, I can't think. But once at home 
on a chair, I couldn't touch the ground with it on any account- 
Mr. C. had to carry me to bed, at the imminent risk of knocking 
my head off against the lintels. So I wouldn't be carried by him 
any more, my head being of more consequence to me than my foot. 
It was dreadfully swelled for a couple of days: but to-day, though I 
still cannot get a shoe on, or walk, it is so much better that I am 
sure it will be all right presently. In a few days I hope to be able 
to write that I am road-worthy, and I will only wait for that. It is 
a most provoking little accident, for delays are so dangerous. I 
should have » ished alter my experiences of late summers to go to 
you at once, before any ' pigs' have time to 'run through.' 

And now I needn't be saying more but that God grant nothing 
may prevent our meeting this time. 

Love to the Doctor. 

Affectionately yours, 

Jane Caklyle. 

LETTER 247. 

To Tltomas Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

Holm Hill, Thornhill: August 13, 1862. 

Oh, my dear, I wish they hadn't started that carpet-lifting and 
chimney-sweeping process so immediately, but left you time to 
recover my loss (if any) in the usual 'peace and quietness'! 
That chimney in my bedroom had to be swept, however, before 
winter came; and no time so good as when I was on my travels. 
You don't complain: but your few lines this morning make the im- 
pression on me of having been written under ' a dark brown shadd ! ' 
I told Maria if she observed you to be mismanaging yourself, and 
going off your sleep and all that sort of thing, to tell me, and I 
should be back like a returned sky-rocket. 

For myself, I am all right. I was in bed before eleven o'clock 
struck, with a stiff little tumbler of whisky toddy in my head, and 
I went to sleep at once, and slept on, with only some half-dozen 
awakenings, till the maid brought in my hot water at eight o'clock! 
My foot, as well as my 'interior,' is benefited by the good night. 
It was too lame for anything yesterday. But there was no tempta- 
tion to use it much yesterday; it rained without intermission. To- 
day is very cloudy, but not wet as yet; and we are going for a drive 
in the close carriage. Dr. Russell has both an open and a close car- 
riage, the lucky man! Indeed he has as pretty and well-equipped 
a place here as any reasonable creature could desire. But Mrs. 
Russell has never ceased to regret the tumble-down old house in 
Thornhill, ' where there was always something going on ! ' ' Look- 
ing out on the trees and the river here makes her so melancholy,' 
she says, that she feels sometimes as if she should lose her senses! 
The wished-for. as usual, come too late! Ease with dignity, when 
the habits of a lifetime have made her incapable of enjoying it! 

Would you tell Maria to put a bit of paper round the little long- 
shaped paste-board box, in my little drawer next the drawing-room, 
containing the two ornamental hair-pins, and send them to me by 
post;— they are quite light; I want them to give away. Also if you 
were to put a couple of good quill-pens of your own making in be- 
sides the hair-pins, 'it would be a great advantage.' I have writ- 
ten to say a word expressly about the tobacco. Oh, please, do go 
to bed at a reasonable hour, and don't overwork yourself, and con- 
sider you are no longer a child! 

Faithfully yours, 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 248. 

To Mrs. Austin. The Gill, Annan. 

Holm Hill, Thornhill, Dumfries: Thursday, Aug. 14, 1862. 

Oh, my little woman, how glad I was to recognise your face 

through the glass of the carriage window, all dimmed with human 

breath! And how frightened I was the train would move, while 

you were clambering up like a school-boy to kiss me! And how I 

§rudged the long walk there and back for yon, and the waiting. 
till you did well to come, for it (your coining) quite brightened up 
my spirits for the last miles of my journey, , which are apt to be 
mortally tiresome. I had meant to 'wave my handkerchief from 
the window when we passed the Gill, but I found no seat vacant 
except the middle one; and disagreeable women, on each side of 
me, closed the windows all but an inch, so to make any demonstra- 
tion had been impossible. The more my gladness to catch sight of 
your very face. And Jane and her husband and daughter were 
waiting lor me at Dumfries, having heard of my coming from Dr. 
Carlyle. 'So the latter end of that woman ' (meaning me) 'was 
better than the beginning.' 

Dr. Russell was waiting for me — had been waiting more than an 
hour, like everyone else — with his carriage, in which I was con- 
veyed through ways, happily for me, clothed in darkness, so that 
the first object I saw was Mrs. Russell at the door of their new 
home. It is a most beautiful house and place they have made of 
old Holm Hill. And I do not see Templand from the windows as 
I feared I should. The trees have grown up so high. 

The first night I couldn't sleep a bit for agitation of mind, far 
more than fatigue of body. The next night I slept; last night 



again not. So to-day I feel rather ghastly. Then it has rained 
pretty much without intermission. Yesterday we took a very 
short drive between showers, and that was the only time I have 
crossed the threshold; besides the bad weather I brought away with 
me a recently sprained foot, which makes walking both painful and 
imprudent. 

ruder these circumstances I have not yet formed any plan for 
my future travels; but shall tell you in a few days whether I will 
pay you a little visit on the road "home, or run down from here, and 
back again. I will certainly not let that brief meeting stand for all, 
unless you forbid me to come. But I have all along looked to be 
guided by circumstances in this journey. 

My stay is to be determined by the accounts I get of Mr. C. from 
himself, and (still more dependably) from my housemaid Maria; 
and my road back, whether as I came or by Edinburgh, to be de- 
cided on when I shall have beard from Lady Stanley and another 
English friend on the North Western line. But I would not leave 
you wondering what was become of me, or if it had been really me 
or my wraith you had seen. 

In a few days, then, you will hear further. Meanwhile 

Your affectionate 

J. W. C. 
j 

LETTER 249. 

To Mrs. Avstin, The Gill, Annan. 

Holm Hill: Saturday, Aug. 30, 1862. 

My dear, ever kind Mary, — In the first place, God bless you and 
yours. Secondly, I am ' all right ' or pretty nearly so. Thirdly, I 
"forward the proof-sheet of Mrs. Oliphant's book which I promised, 
and something else which was not promised — a photograph of my 
interesting self, taken by a Thornhill hairdresser, and not so very 
bad, it strikes me, as photographs go. This last blessed item of my 
sending is intended as a present to your husband, 'all to himself,' 
as the children say. 

A letter from Mr. C. to me was forwarded from Scotsbrig to the 
Doctor, and given to me at the station, and another letter from Mr. 
C. awaited me at Thornhill; a very attentive Mr. C. really! 

I have no time to spare for writing more than the absolutely 
needful. Six letters by post this morning, most of them needing 
immediate answer, and we are to drive to Morton Castle before 
dinner. 

God keep you all, well and mindful of me till I come again. 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane Caklyle. 

LETTER 250. 
To T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

Craigenvilla: Tuesday, Sept. 2, 1862. 

Oh, you stupid, stupid Good! not to know my handwriting 
when you see it at this time of day. It was I who directed that 
photograph and posted it at Thornhill. I just turned my hand- 
writing a little back, and sent it, without a word, to puzzle you, 
forgetting that the post-mark would betray where it came from. 
It was done by a Thornhill hairdresser; Mrs. Russell and I got 
taken one day "for fun, and if I had dreamt of coming out so well I 
would have dressed myself better, and turned the best side jf my 
face. 

My departure from Nithsdale was like the partings of dear old 
long ago, before one had experienced what ' time will teach the 
softest heart, unmoved to meet, ungrieved to part,' as the immortal 
Mr. Terrot once wrote. And then the journey through the hills to 
that little lonely churchyard ' — all that caused me so many tears, 
that to-day my eyes are out of my head, and I am sick and sore. 
And, of course, sleep was out of the question after such a day of 
emotion — when so ill to be caught at the best of times — and I have 
had just one hour of broken slumber (from live till six), aud I was 
up at six yesterday morning. So I mustn't go after Betty to-day; 
she would be too shocked with my looks. Grace and I will take a 
short drive in an omnibus (for a change). Neither must I sit writ- 
ing to you. in detail, for my head spins round, and I could tell you 
nothing worth the effort of telling it. I left a letter to be posted at 
Thornhill yesterday. 

So Garibaldi — or, as a man in the carriage with me last evening 
was calling him, Garri Bauldy — is wounded and captured already 
— luck, I should say, to the poor fellows he was leading to destruc- 
tion! Mazzini will lie thankful he must have reached Garibaldi; 
it is to be hoped he is not taken also, but he went with his eyes 
perfectly open to the madness. 

Grace was waiting at the train for me, and instantly found me 
under my hat and feather in the dark. She said it was by a motion 
of my hand. 

They are all most kind. Elizabeth not so poorly as I expected to 
find her; Grace and Ann younger-looking than last time — hair 
raven black, far blacker than mine. Good-bye! I hope to sleep 
to night; for I will have a dose of morphia now that I am near 
Duncan and Flockhart, and then I will be up to a better letter than 

1 Crawford, where her mother's grave ifi. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



123 



this. I have left Grace to make out the 'old goose,' 1 and tell me 
the needful. Your ever 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 251. 
Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill, Thornhitt. 

Craigenvilla, Morniugside : Tuesday, Sept. 2, 1863. 

My darling! — Nature prompts me to write just aline, though I 
am not up to a letter to-day, at least to any other letter than the 
daily one to Mr. O, which must he written dead or alive. Imagine! 
after such a tiring day, I never closed my eyes till after five this 
morning! and was awake again for good, or rather for bad, before 
six struck! My eyes are almost out of my head this morning; and 
tell the Doctor, or rather don't tell him. I will have a dose of mor- 
phia to-night! — am just going in an omnibus to Duncan and Flock- 
hart's for it. It will calm down my mind for once — generally my 
mind needs no calming, being sunk in apathy. And this won't do 
to go on! 

Mr. 0. writes this morning that he had received a letter in the 
handwriting of Dr. Russell (!) (my own handwriting slightly dis- 
guised), and 'had torn it open in a fright!! thinking that the Doc- 
tor was writing to tell I was ill! and found a photograph of me, 
really very like indeed,' but not a word ' from the Doctor ' inside! 
He took it as a sign that I was off! (why, in all the world, take it 
as that?) ' but it would have been an additional favour had the 
Doctor written just a line! ' 

Grace was waiting at the station for me, much to my astonish- 
ment; and discovered me at once, under the hat and feather, actu- 
ally! She said by ' a motion of my hand '! The drains are all torn 
up at Morniugside, and she was afraid I would not get across the 
rubbish in my cab without a pilot. They are all looking well, I 
think — even Elizabeth. Many friendly inquiries about you, and 
love to be sent. 

Oh, my dear, my dear! My head is full of wool! Shall I ever 
forget these green hills, and that lonely churchyard, and your dear, 
gentle face! 

Oh, how I wish I had a sleep! 

Your own friend, 

Jane Carltle. 

The roots are all in the garden. 

LETTER 252. 
To T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 
Craigenvilla, Morningside (Edinburgh): Thursday, Sept. 4, 1862. 

' Two afflictions make a consolation ' — of a sort! The disappoint- 
ment of not receiving the usual good words from you this morning 
comforted my conscience at least for having failed in my own writ- 
ing yesterday. I could figure you eating your breakfast at Cheyne 
Row, without any letter from me, with no particular pang of re- 
morse; when I was eating my breakfast here with only the direc- 
tion on ' Orley Farm ' for a relish to my indifferent tea! It was 
partly the morphia that hindered me yesterday, and partly the rain. 
The morphia, which answered the end capitally, and procured me 
the only really sound sleep I have had since I went on my travels, 
made me feel too listless for writing before going to Betty's; and 
the walk through the rain to the cab when we returned made me 
too tired for writing after in time for the Morniugside post. 

Well, I have seen Betty, and Betty has seen me. Poor dear! It 
•wasn't so ' good a joy ' as it might have been; for Ann and Grace 
in their kindness would not let me go by myself, aud the three of 
us were too many for the wee house and for Betty's nerves, which 
aren't what they were. But she made the best of that as of every- 
thing else. 'It's weel they're so kind to ye, dear; and it's richt,' 
she said, during a minute we were alone together. She gave me 
the 'stockns' (beautiful fine white ones), and a little packet of pep- 
permint lozenges were lying beside them, 'in case I ever cam'.' 
Dear, kind soul! her heart is the same warm loyal heart; but these 
seven years of nursing have made terrible alterations in her; her hair 
is white as snow, and her face is so fined away that it looks as if 
one might blow it away like powder. I don't think she can stand 
much longer of it. George (poor patient ' GargM) is neither better 
nor worse; his mind not weakened at all, I think (which is wonder- 
ful). Old Braid keeps himself in health by much working in his 
garden, which is prolific. 'Sic a crapp o' gude peas, dear! Oh, 
if I could have sent Mr. Carlyle a wee dish o' them to cheer him up 
when he was alaue, poor man! ' ' Oh, dear! ' she said, again catch- 
ing my arm excitedly, ' wad onybody believe it? He— yer gude- 
man — direcks " Punch" till us every week, his ain sell, to sic as us! ' 
Mr. Braid did not know me when I went in at the door the first; 
and when I taxed him with it he said, ' How should I ken ye? Ye 
lookit like a bit skelt o' a lassie, wi' that daft wee thing a-tap o' yer 
heed ! ' 

I mean to get home, please God, at the beginning of next week. 
I cannot fix the day just yet, being 'entangled in details' with the 
Auchtertool people. I have seen nobody here but the Braids — 
indeed, there is nobody I much care to see. A most uninteresting 

1 Some foolish letter to me. 



place Edinburgh is become. I would like to spend an hour at 
Haddington in the dark! But I 'don't see my way' to that. I 
was glad to hear that Scotsbrig Jenny was getting over her bad fit. 
Grace has just come in, and sends her regards. 

Yours ever, 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 253. 

To T. Carlyle, Chelsea. 

Craigenvilla (Edinburgh): Friday, Sept. 5, 1862. 

Thanks, dear; here is a nice little letter this morning, which has 
had the double effect of satisfying my anxieties and delivering me 
from ' prayers.' I ran up to my room with it, and shut myself in, 
and when I issued forth again, prayers were over! What luck! 
My aunts are as kind to me as they can be — all three of them— aud 
they exert themselves beyond their strength, I can see, to make my 
visit pleasant to me; but still I am like a fish out of water in this 
element of religiosity, or rather like a human being in water, and 
the' water hot. 

I am glad you have heard from my lady at last. I was beginning 
to not understand it; to fear either you or I must have in someway 
displeased her. If you could bring yourself to go to the Grange at 
once I shouldn't at all mind your being away when I arrived; 
should rather like to transact my fatigues and my acclimatising 'in 
a place by myself.' And we might still have the ' sacred week ' of 
idling and sightseeing (an exceptional week in our mutual life, it 
would be) after your return. 

I find I cannot get off from Auchtertool. I shouldn't dislike a 
couple of days there (though many days couldn't be endured) 
if it. weren't for that 'crossing.' But, like it or not, I must just 
'cross and recross'! Maggie is returned. Walter has put off 
joining Alexander at Crawford; they are all expecting me, and 
the only expedient by which I could have avoided visiting 
them without giving offence to their kind feelings, viz., invit- 
ing them all to spend a day with me here, cannot be ' carried 
out' — for ' reasons it may be interesting not to state.' After all I 
have no kinder relative or friend in the world than poor Walter. 
Every summer, when invitations were not so plenty, his house, and 
all that is his, has been placed at my disposal. It is the only house 
where I could go, without an invitation, at any time that suited 
myself; and, considering all that, I must just 'cross' to-morrow, in 
the intention, however, of staying only two days. I should have 
gone to-day but for a letter of Walter's — ' mis-sent to Liberton ' — 
and so not reaching me in time. 

I am now going off to town with Grace to get her photograph 
taken — 'for Jeannie's book,' she says; but I doubt the singleness 
of the alleged motive. I shall call for Mrs. Stirling — who else? 
Alas, my old friends are ' all wed away ' ! ' 

I return the letter, which seems to me perfectly serious and rather 
sensible; only what of Shakespeare? Shakespeare ' never did the 
likeo't!' 

Address here; I shall find it (the letter) on my return from Auch- 
tertool, if I am not here before it. It was thunder and lightning 
and waterspouts yesterday; terrible for laying the crops, surely. 

Yours ever, 

Jane W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 254. 
Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill. 

Auchtertool Manse: Monday, Sept. 8, 1862. 

So long as I am in Scotland, my darling, I cannot help feeling 
that my head-quarters is Holm Hill! though I go buzzing here and 
there, like a ' Bum-bee ' in the neighbourhood of its hive. Every- 
where that I go I am warmly welcomed, and made much of; but 
nowhere that I go do I feel so at home, in an element so congenial 
to me, as with you aud the Doctor! At Craigenvilla, though treated 
as a niece, and perhaps even a favourite niece, I am always reacting 
against the self-assumption, and the religiosity (not the religion, 
mind!); and here, though I am 'cousin' — their one cousin, for 
whom their naturally hospitable and kindly natures are doubly hos- 
pitable and kindly — still I miss that congeniality which conies of 
having mutually suffered, and taken one's suffering to heart! I 
feel here as if I were ' playing ' with nice, pretty, well-behaved 
children! I almost envy them their light-hearted capacity of being 
engrossed with trifles! And yet, not that! there is a deeper joy in 
one's own sorrowful memories surely, than in this gaiety that comes 
of 'never minding'! Would I, would you, cease to regret the dear 
ones we have lost if we could? Would we be light-hearted, at the 
cost of having nothing in one's heart very precious or sacred? Oh, 
no! better ever such grief for the lost, than never to have loved 
anyone enough to have one's equanimity disturbed by the loss! 

I came here on Saturday; was to have come on Friday, but had to 
wait for a letter of Walter's 'mis-sent to Liberton.' I go back to 
Morniugside to-morrow forenoon, unless it 'rains cats and dogs! ' 
And then to London after one day's rest! And after all my haste 
—at least haste after leaving Holm Hill— the chances are I shall 
find Mr. C. just gone to the Grange. He had ' partly decided on 



1 Flowers of the Forest. 



124 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



going next Tuesday (tomorrow).' And, if I wasn't home in time 
to go with him, he had engaged I would join him there' Don't lie 
wish he may get me! He will have to stay eonsiderably longer 
than the ' one week ' he talks of, before I shall feel disposed to 
'take the road ' again ! In fact, I should greatly like a few days 
' all to myself,' to sleep off my fatigues, and get acclimatised, before 
having to resume my duties as mistress of Hie house. 

Alex. Welsh came to Crawford the 'next day,' as predicted; but 
' his Reverence ' never joined him there. And Alex., finding tin' 
fishing as bad as possible, went on to spend a few days with the 
Chrystals in Glasgow, before returning to Liverpool. 

God keep you, dearest friend; after the Doctor, there is nobody 
you are so precious to as to me! I will write from Chelsea. 

Your loving 

J. Carlyle. 

LETTER 255. 

Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill. 

5 Cheyne Row: Tuesday night, Sept. 30, 1862. 

Dearest of Friends, — I am writing two Hues at this late hour, 
because I don't want the feeling of closeness that has outlived the 
precious three weeks we were together to die out through length of 
silence. For the rest, I am not in good case for writing a pleasant 
letter, having had no sleep last night, and the bad night not having 
been compensated, as my bad nights at Holm Hill were, strangely 
enough, by a good day. And I am bothered, too, with prepara- 
tions for a journey to-morrow. What a locomotive animal I have 
suddenly become! Yes, it is a fact, my dear, that to-morrow 1 I 
am bound for Dover, to stay till Monday with that lady we call 
' the flight of Skylarks,"- who was wanting me to come home by 
her place in Derbyshire She is now at Dover, in lodgings, for the 
benefit of sea air; and has invited me there since I wouldn't go to 
Wootou Hall, and Mr. C, who thought I ought to have come home 
by her, wishes me to go. And I am sure I have no objections; for 
I like her much, and I like the sea much. But I ' am not to be 
staj'iug away this time,' he says, ' and leaving him long by himself 
again.' No fear! I must return to London on Monday, or I should 
not see Charlotte Cushmau (who is now in Liverpool and returns 
here on Thursday) before her departure for Rome. Indeed, charm- 
ing as I think the 'flight of Skylarks,' I should not be unsettling 
myself again if only I had kept the better health and spirits I 
brought back from Scotland. It was too much to hope, however, 
that I could keep all that long. The clammy heavy weather we 
have had for the last week has put me all wrong somehow. I am 
sick at stomach, or at heart (I can't tell which), and have a con- 
tinual irritation in my bits of 'interiors,' and horrid nights, for all 
which, I daresay, the sea is the best medicine. I shall tell you how 
it has answered when I come back. 

Love to the Doctor. Your own 

J. W. C. 
LETTER 256. 
T. Carlyle. Esq., Chekea. 
1 Sidney Villas, Dover: Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 1, 1862. 

I may take a reasonable sheet of paper, dear! for, besides being 
not ' too tired for writing,' I have abundance of time for writing, 
' the Larks ' 3 being all far up out of sight, beyond the visible sky ! 
looking for me there. My journey was successful, and I stepped 
out at Dover worth half a dozen of the woman I left Chelsea. Cu- 
rious what a curative effect a railway journey has on me always, 
while you it makes pigs and whistles of! Is it the motion, or is it 
the changed air? ' God knows! ' 

The first thing that befell me at Dover was a disappointment — ■ 
no Larks waiting! not a feather of them to be discovered by the 
naked eye. The next thing that befell me was to be deceived and 
betrayed and entirely discomfited by — a sailor. After looking 
about for the. Larks some ten minutes, and being persecuted as 
long by pressing proposals from cabmen and omnibus conductors, 
I was asking a porter how far it was to Sidney Villas. The porter 
not knowing the place, a sailor came forward and said he knew it. 
that it ' was just a few steps; I would be there in a minute if I 
liked to walk, and he would carry my trunk for me.' And, with- 
out waiting to have the question debated, he threw my trunk over 
his shoulder and walked off. I followed, quite taken by assault. 
And Ave walked on and on, and oh, such a distance! — certainly two 
miles at least, the sailor pretending to not hear every time' I re- 
monstrated, or assuring me ' I couldn't find a prettier walk in all 
Dover than this.' At last we reached Sidney Villas; and when I 
accused my sailor of having basely misled me that he might have a 
job. he candidly owned, 'Well, things are dear just now. and few- 
jobs going,' wiping the sweat from his brow at the same time, and 
looking delighted with the shilling I gave him. I thought it was 
all gone to the devil together when the man who answered the bell 
denied that Miss Bromley was there. On cross-questioning, how- 
ever, he explained that she did reside there, but was not at home — 



1 Went October 1. 

' Miss Davenport Bromley; her great-grandfather at 'Wooton,' in Staf- 
fordshire, was the ' Mr. Davenport' who gave shelter to Rousseau. 
3 See note, supra. 



was ' gone to the railway to meet a lady ' — and his eye just then 
squinting on my portmanteau, he exclaimed, with suddeu cordial- 
ity, ' Perhaps you are the lady?' I owned the soft impeachment 
and was shown to the bedroom prepared for me, and have washed 
and unpacked. Meanwhile Miss B.'s maid, who had gone to one 
station while Miss Ii. went to the other to make sure of me, re- 
turned and gave me a cup of tea, and then went off to catch the 
poor dear Larks, who was wailing fin- me at the wrong station. 
There being a third station (the one at which I landed), it hadn't 
occurred to either mistress or maid to ask at which of the three 
stations the three o'clock train stopped. 

Larks come with feathers all in a fluff. 'So dreadfully sorry,' 
&c. &c. Dinner not till seven, and to be enlivened by the pres- 
ence of Mr. Brookfield, whom she had met while looking for me. 
Seven!' and I had only one small cup of tea and one slice of 
etherial bread and butter. But we ' must make it do.' 

This house is within a stone-cast of the sea, and also, alas! of 
the pier; so that there is as much squealing of children at this 
moment as if it were Cheyne Row. Nothing but a white blind to 
keep out the light of a large window. But with shutters and still- 
ness, and all possible/furtherance, I was finding sleep impossible at 
home; so perhaps it may suit the contradictory nature of the ani- 
mal to sleep here without them. 

Now, upon my word, this is a fairly long letter to be still in the 
first day of absence. It will, at least, show that I am less ghastly 
sick and with less worry in my interior than when I left in the 
morning. 

Yours anyhow, 

J. W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 257. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

1 Sidney Villas, Dover: Friday, Oct. 3, 1862. 

Oh, my dear! I ' did design ' to write you a nice long letter to- 
day. But ' you must just excuse us ' again. I am the victim of 
' circumstances over which I have no control.' I must put you off 
with a few lines, and lie down on the sofa of my bedroom, and 
try to get warm, or it will be the worse for me. You see I am 
taking every day a warm sea-bath, hoping to derive benefit from it 
— ' cha-arge ' half-a-crowu. But, never mind, if I can stave off an 
illness at the beginning of winter, I shall save in doctor's bills! 
Well, my bath to-day made me excessively sleepy, and I lay down 
to sleep, and in five minutes I was called down to luncheon, and 
after luncheon I must go with Miss Bromley to call for Lady 
Doyle, with whom Miss Wynne, just arrived from Carlsbad, had 
been yesterday — might still be to-day. Our call executed, it was 
proposed we should drive on to Shakespeare's Cliff, and when 
there, we were driven away 'over the heights' — a most alarming 
road — all this time in an open carriage; and now that we are come 
in there is not a fire anywhere — never is any fire to warm myself 
at — and so I am not at all in right trim for letter-writing. And 
common prudence requires I should lie down and get into heat. 

For the rest it is all right. I have slept very fairly both nights 
in spite of — 'many things!' Miss B. is kind and charming, the 
place is ' delicious, ' and I am certainly much better for the change. 
But, for all that, I am coming home without fail at the time I 
fixed; not from any 'puritanical' adherence to my word given, 
but that by Monday I shall have had enough of it and got all the 
good to be got. Miss B. has pressed me earnestly to stay till Mon- 
day week; but no need to bid me — ' be firm, Alicia! ' 

What a pity about poor Bessy! She says she 'was always a 
worshipper of genius, and recollects one day in particular when 
Mr. Carlyle poured out such a stream of continuous eloquence that 
she was forcibly reminded of the lady who spoke pearls aud dia- 
monds in the fairy talc' She is very proud of her book and pho- 
tograph. That absurd corkmaker sends me his photograph. I 
will bring his letter for you; inclosed in mine it is over-weight. 

[No room io sign] ' J. W. C. ' 

LETTER 258. 
Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Monday, October 20, 1862. 

Now Mary, dear! pray don't let the echoes of your voice die 
out of my ears, if you can help it! It makes the difference be- 
twixt feeling near aud feeling far away; the difference betwixt 
writing off-hand, as one speaks, and writing cramped apologies. 
You may not have anything momentous to tell; but I am not diffi- 
cult to interest, when it is you who are writing. Just fill a small 
sheet with such matter as you would say to me, if I were sitting 
opposite you, and I shall be quite content. 

Neither have I myself anything momentous to tell, except, I was 
going to say, that I had got a new bonnet, or rather my last win- 
ter's bonnet transformed into a new one; but it suddenly flashes 
over me, that is by no menus the most momentous thing I have to 
tell; a new bonnet is nothing in comparison to a new — maid! Ah, 
my dear! Yes, I am changing my housemaid; I have foreseen 
for long, even when she was capering about me, and kissing my 
hands and shawl, that this emotional young lady would not wear 
well ; and that some fine day her self-conceit and arrogance 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OE JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



125 



would find the limits of my patience. Indeed, I should have lost 
patience with her long ago, if it hadn't been for her cleverness 
about Mr. C.'s books, which I fancied would make him extremely 
averse to parting with her, as cleverness of that sort is not a com- 
mon gift with housemaids. But not at all — at least not iu pros- 
pect; he says she is 'such an affected fool,' and so heedless in 
other respects that it is quite agreeable to him 'that she should 
carry her fantasticalities and incompetences elsewhere!' She had 
calculated on being indispensable, on the score of the books, and 
was taking, since soon after my return from Scotland, a position 
in the house which was quite preposterous — domineering towards 
the cook, and impertinent to me! picking and choosing at her work 
— in fact, not behaving like a servant at all, but like a lady, who, for 
a caprice, or a wager, or anything except wages and board, was 
condescending to exercise light functions in the house, provided 
you kept her in good humour with gifts and praises. 

When Mr. C.'s attention was directed to her procedure, he saw 
the intolerableness as clearly as I did; so I was quite free to try 
conclusions with the girl — either she should apologise for her im- 
pertinence and engage (like Magdalen Smith) ' to turn over a new 
leaf,' or she should (as Mr. C. said) ' oarry her fantasticalities and 
incompetences elsewhere! ' She chose, of course, the worser part; 
and I made all the haste possible to engage a girl iu her place, and 
make the fact known, that so I might protect myself against 
scenes of reconciliation, which, to a woman as old and nervous as 
I am, are just about as tiresome as scenes of altercation. All sorts 
of scenes cost me my sleep, to begin with ; and are a sheer waste of 
vital power, which one's servant at least ought really not to cost 
one! 

I am going to try a new arrangement — that of keeping two 
women (experienced, or considering themselves so) to do an amount 
of work between them which any good experienced servant could 
do singly having hitherto proved unmanageable with me. I have 
engaged a little girl of the neighbourhood (age about fifteen) to be 
under the Scotchwoman. She is known to me as an honest, truth- 
ful, industrious little girl. Her parents are rather superior people 
in their station. The father is a collector ou the boats. She is 
used to work, but not at all to what Mr. C.'s father would have 
called the 'curiosities and niceties ' of a house like this. So I shall 
have trouble enough in licking her into shape. But trouble is 
always a bearable thing for me in comparison with irritation. The 
chief drawback is that the mother is sickly, and this child has been 
her mainstay at home; and though both parents have willingly 
sacrificed their own convenience to get their child into so respect- 
able a place, my fear is that after I have had the trouble of licking 
her into shape, the mother, under the pressure of home difficulties, 
may be irresistibly tempted to take her home again. Well, there is 
an excellent Italian proverb, ' The person who considers everything 
will never decide on anything! ' Meanwhile, Elizabeth looks much 
more alive and cheerful since she had this change in view; and I 
shall be delivered from the botheration of two rival queens in the 
kitchen at all events. That I shall have to fetch the books, and do 
the sewing myself, will perhaps — ' keep the devil from my elbow.' 

I had a letter from my Aunt Ann the other day, the first I have 
had from any of them since I was at Craigenvilla, in spite of 
entreaties and remonstrances on my part. She tells me that the 
maidservant whom Grace ' converted ' some years ago is still pray- 
ing earnestly for Mr. Carlyle. She has been at it a long while now, 
and must be tired of writing to my aunts to ask whether they had 
heard if anything had happened through her prayers. I will send 
you Ann's letter; burn it before, or having read it — as you like. 
Does it amuse you to read letters (good in their way) not addressed 
to yourself? Tell me that; for if it does, I could often, at the 
small cost of an extra stamp, send you on any letter that has 
pleased myself, without putting you to the trouble of returning 
them. I am afraid you will not have so many visitors to enliven 
you in the winter; and then you will take to thinking it was 
livelier at Thornhill, with your window looking on the street. Oh 
my dear! I wonder how the Doctor is so angelically patient with 
your hankering after the old house, when he has made the new 
one so lovely for you. Yet I can understand all that about the old 
house. I can, who am a woman! 

LETTER 259. 

To Mrs. Austin, The Gill, Annan. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea : Thursday, Oct. 23, 1863. 

Blessings on you, dear! These eggs have been such a deliver- 
ance. Can you believe it of me? I have been in such a worry of 
mind of late days, that were it asked of me, with a loaded pistol at 
my breast, whether or not I had written again after receiving your 
letter, I could not tell! So iu case I did not, I write to-night, while 
I have a little breathing-time. 

Lord Ashburton, whom we had been led to suppose out of 
danger, made no progress in convalescence and then began to sink. 
Lady A., who has had the news of her mother's death since his 
illness, was alone to nurse him day and night. Her sister, who had 
gone to her at Paris, was obliged to hurry back to London, to 
attend to her own husband, who is confined to bed. She told me I 
was the only other person whom her sister (Lady A.) would like to 



have beside her. Would I write and ask if I might come? It was 
a serious undertaking for me, at this season, who had never crossed 
the Channel, and suffering so from sailing, and whose household 
affairs were in such a muddle; a servant to go away and no one 
yet found to replace her — but what else could 1 do but go to her if 
she would have me? Mr. C, too, thought I could do nothing else. 
So I wrote and offered to come immediately, and you may think if 
I have not been perfectly bewildered while waiting her answer — 
'seeing servants,' as the phrase is, all the while. This morning I 
had a few hurried lines from her — No — I was not to come, ' it could 
do her no good and would knock me up;' for the rest, she was 
' past all human help,' she said, ' and past all sympathy.' And the 
poor dear soul had drawn her pen through the last words. So like 
her, that she might not seem unkind, even iu her agony of grief 
and dread she thought of that. 

Their doctor's last two letters to me were very despondeut, and 
neither to-day nor yesterday has there been any word from him, as 
there would have surely been, could he have imparted a grain of 
hope. We dread now that the next post will bring the news of our 
dear Lord Ashburton's death. Carlyle will lose in him the only 
friend he has left iu the world, and the world will lose in him one 
of the purest-hearted, most chivalrous men that it contained. 
There are no words for such a misfortune. 

Meanwhile one's own poor little life struggles on, with its daily 
petty concerns, as well as its great ones. About these eggs, which 
mustn't be neglected, if the solar system were coming to a stand — 
I do not think, dear, it was the fewness of the eggs that kept 
them safe so much as the plentifulness of the hay" Depend on 
it, your woman's plan of making the eggs all touch each other 
was a bad one. We have still eggs for a week — and then? I know 
of two hens in the neighbourhood that have begun to lay, but 
they do it so irregularly, so I mustn't trust to them" I dou't think 
it would be safe to send the butter and eggs in the same box ; a 
coarse basket would do as well as a box forthe eggs — the difficulty 
of getting them sent doesn't seem to be the carriage so much as 
things to pack them in. If we were but nearer, I might send what 
the Addiscombe gardener calls the empties back again at trifling 
cost. 1 must inquire what it would cost to send empty baskets, as 
it is; I could take them myself to the office. 

Oh dear me ! what a pleasure it is when one is away from home 
and has no servants to manage, and no food to provide. Mr. C. 
gets more and more difficult to feed, and more and more impatient 
of the imperfections of human cooks and human housewives. I 
sometimes feel as if I should like to run away. But the question 
always arises, where to? 

Kind regards to Jamie and the girls. What a pleasant time I 
had with you all, those nice evening drives! — Carlaverock Castle! 
How like a beautiful dream it all is, when I look back on it from 
here! 

Your affectionate 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 260. 

Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill, 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Thursday, Nov. 21, 1862. 

Dearest Mary,— The last of the four notes I inclosed, which had 
come a few hours before I wrote to you, made us expect the worst; 
and as the day went on, we could not help expecting the worst with 
more and more certainty. The same night we were talking very 
sadly of Lord Ashburton, almost already in the past tense; Mr. C. 
saying. ' God help me! since I am to lose him, the kindest, gentlest, 
friendliest man in my life here! I may say the one friend f have in 
the world! ' and I, walking up and down iu the room, as my way 
is when troubled in miud, had just answered, ' It's no use going to 
bed and trying to sleep, in this suspense!' when the door opened 
and a letter was handed me. It was from Paris, a second letter 
that day! I durstn't open it. Mr. C. impatiently took it from me, 
but was himself so agitated that he couldn't read it, when he had 
it. At last he exclaimed, ' "Better!" I see the one word " better," 
nothing else! look there, is not that "better"?' To be sure it was! 
and you may imagine our relief! and our thankfulness to Lady A. 
and Mrs. Anstruther for not losing a moment in telling us! The 
letters go on more and more favourable. The doctors say ' they 
cannot understand it.' When do these grand doctors understand 
anything? But no matter about them, so that he is recovering, 
whether they understand it or not! 

I may now tell you of my household crisis, which has been 
happily accomplished. Maria has departed this scene, and little 
'Flo'(!) has entered upon it; not a little dog, as you might fancy 
from the name, but a remarkably intelligent, well-conditioned girl 
between fourteen and fifteen, who was christened ' Florence '—loo 
long and too romantic a name for household use! She is so quick 
at learning that training her is next to no trouble. And Mr. C. is 
so pleased with the clever little creature, that he has been much 
less aggravating than usual under a change. Maria wished to make 
me a scene at parting (of course). But I brutally declined partici- 
pating in it, so she rushed up to the study with her tears to Mr. O, 
who was ' dreadfully sorry for the poor creature.' The ' poor crea- 
ture ' had been employing her mind latterly in impressing on Eliza- 



126 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



beth, who is weak enough to believe what mischief-makers tell her, 
rather than the evidence of her own senses, that she was going to 
be overworked (!) with only an untrained girl instead of a fine lady 
housemaid for fellow-servant, and in making herself so charming 
and caressing for Elizabeth that her former tyrannies were forgot- 
ten ; and Elizabeth, who had looked quite happy at the idea of 
Maria's going 'and a girl under her,' turned suddenly round into 
wearing a sullen look of victimhood, and declining silently to give 
me the least help in training the girl! All the better for the girl; 
and perhaps also all the better for me! 

But it is a disappointment to find that my Scotch blockhead is 
no brighter for having her 'Bubbly Jock' taken off her! Such a 
woman to have had sent four hundred miles to one! Mr. C. always 
speaks of her as 'that horse,' 'that cow,' 'that mooncalf!' But 
upon my honour, it, is an injustice to the horse, the cow. and even 
the mooncalf ! For sample of her procedure: there is a glass door 
into the back court consisting of two immense panes of glass; the 
cow has three several times smashed one of these sheets of glass, 
through the same carelessness, neglecting to latch it up' three 
times, in the six months she has been here! and nobody before her 
ever smashed that door! Another thing that nobody before her 
ever did, in all the twenty-eight or nine years I have lived in the 
house, was to upset the kitchen table! and smash, at one stroke, 
nearly all the tumblers and glasses we had, all the china breakfast 
things, a crystal butter-glass (my mother's), a crystal flower vase, 
and ever so many jugs and bowls! There was a whole washing-tub 
full of broken things! Surely honesty, sobriety, and steadiness 
must have grown dreadfully scarce qualities, that one puts up with 
such a cook; especially as her cooking is as careless as the rest of 
her doings. No variety is required of her, and she has been taught 
how to do the few things Mr. C. needs. She can do them when 
she cares to take pains; but every third day or so there comes up 
something that provokes him into declaring, ' That brute will be 
the death of me! It is really too bad to have wholesome food 
turned to poison.' But I suppose she understands herself engaged 
by the half-year, though I never had any explanation with her, as 
to the second half-year. And so, Heaven grant me patience! 

What a pack of complaints! but, my dear, there is nobody but 
you that I would think of making them to! and it is a certain 
easing of nature to utter them; so forgive the mean details. 

Love to the Doctor. 

Your ever affectionate 

Jane Caklyle. 



LETTER 361. 

To Mrs. Austin, The Gill, Annan. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Nov. 1862. 

Dearest Mary, — The box of eggs came yesterday. Another per- 
fect success; not a single egg broken or cracked! The barrel 
arrived to-day; and Mr. C. has already eaten a quarter of one of 
the fowls, and found less fault with his dinner than he is in the 
habit of doing now. In fact, I look forward to his dinner-time 
with a sort of panic, which the event for most part justifies. How 
I wish this long, weary book were done, for his own sake and for 
everybody's near him. It. is like living in a madhouse on the days 
when he gets ill on with his writing. 

1 have a new woman coming as cook next Tuesday, and intense 
as has been Mr. C.'s abhorrence of the present 'mooncalf,' 'cow,' 
' brute-beast,' I look forward with trepidation to having to leach 
the new-comer all Mr. C.'s things, which every woman who comes 
has to be taught, whether she can cook in a general way or not. 
If the kitchen were only on the same floor with the room! but I 
have to go down three pairs of stairs to it, past a garden-door kept 
constantly open in all weathers; and at this season of the year, with 
my dreadful tendency to catch interminable colds, running up and 
down these stairs teaching bread-making, and Mr. C.'s sort, of soup. 
and Mr. C.'s sort of puddings, cutlets, &c. &c, is no joke. My 
one constant terror is lest I should fall ill and be unable to go down 
to the kitchen at all. I dream about that at nights. Really 

If I were dead. 

And a stone at my head, 

I think t should be be-tter. 1 

There Is the anxiety about dear Lord Ashburton too; that has 
been going on now some five weeks; sometimes relieved a little. 
then again worse than ever. I have a note in my pocket at this 
moment, which Mr. C. does not know of, leaving scarce a hope of 
his recovery. As it was not from the doctor, but from Lady A.'s 
niece, who expresses herself very confusedly, and might have made 
the case worse than it is, I decided not to unsettle Mr. C. at his 
writing witli a sight of it; and it has felt burning in my pocket all 
da} r ; and every knock at the door makes my heart jump into my 
throat, for it may be news of his death. 

As this letter won't reach you any sooner for being posted to- 
night, I will keep it open till to-morrow in case of another from 



1 Old beggar's rhyme on entering: 

' I'm a poor helpless craiture, 
If I were, &c better (baiture !) ' 



Paris. And if I have more to say I had better keep that till to- 
morrow too. I write with such a weight on my spirits to-night. 
But always 

Most affectiouately yours, 

Jane Carlyle. 

A note has just come from Lady Ashburton's sister in London, 
forwarding a telegram just, received: ' My Lord has passed a better 
night. Dr. Quaiu thinks him no worse.' So there is still hope — 
for those who have a talent for hoping. 

LETTER 262. 
To Mrs. Bussell. 

5 Cheyne Row: December 15, 1862. 
I should not be at all afraid that after a few weeks my new maid 
would do well enough if it weren't for "Sly. C.'s frightful impatience 
with any new servant untrained lo his ways, which would drive a 
woman out of the house with her hair on end if allowed to act 
directly upon her! So that I have to stand between them, and imi- 
tate in a small, lmmbte way the Roman soldier who gathered his 
arms full of the enemy's spears, and received them all into his own 
breast. ' It is this which makes a change of servants, even when for 
the better, a terror to me in prospect, and an agony in realisation — 
for a time. 

LETTER 263. 
Mrs. Braid, Edinburgh. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea' Christmas Day, 1863. 

Dearest Betty, — Here we are, you and I, again at the end of a 
year. Still alive, you and I, and those belonging to us still alive, 
while so many younger, healthier, more life-like people, who be- 
gan the year with ns, have been struck down by death. Can we 
do better, after thanking God that we are still spared, than embrace 
one another across the four hundred miles that lie between, in the 
only fashion possible, that is on paper. 

' Merry Christmases,' and ' Happy New Years,' are words that 
produce melancholy ideas rather than cheerful ones to people of 
our age and experience. So I don't wish you a 'mirth,' and a 
' happiness,' which I know to have passed out of Christmas and 
New Year for such as us for evermore; passed out of them along 
with so much else; our gay spirits, our bright hopes, living hearts 
that loved us, and the fresh, trusting life of our own hearts. It is 
a thing too sad for tears, the thought how much is past and gone, 
even while there is much to be cared for. And that is all the dis- 
mals I am going to indulge in at this writing. 

For the rest, we have been in great anxiety about Lord Ashbur- 
ton. It is six weeks past on Monday that he has been hanging be- 
twixt life and death, at an hotel in Paris, where he was taken ill of 
inflammation of the lungs, on his way to Nice; and all the time I 
have been receiving a letter from Lad}' A.'s sister by her directions, 
or from their travelling physician. Dr. Christison (son of that Rob- 
ert Christison, who used to visit at my uncle Benjamin's in your 
time), every day almost, sometimes two letters in one day; such 
constant changes there have been in the aspect of his illness! The 
morning letter would declare him ' past all human help,' and in 
the evening would come news of decided ' improvement,' so that 
we couldn't have been kept in greater suspense if we had been in 
the same house with him. The last three days there has been again 
talk of 'a faint hope,' 'a bare possibility of recovery.' And their 
London physician, who has been five times telegraphed for to Paris, 
called here to-day immediately on his return, directed by Lady A., 
to go and tell us of his new hopes. When I was told Dr. Quain 
was in the drawing-room, I went in to him with my heart in my 
mouth, persuaded he had been sent to break the news of Lord A.'s 
death. My first words to him (he had never been in the house be- 
fore) were, 'Oh, Dr. Quain, what has brought you here?' — a re- 
ception so extraordinary that he stood struck speechless, which 
confirmed me in my idea, and I said, violently, 'Tell me at once! 
you are come to tell me he is dead? ' ' My dear lady, I am come to 
tell you no such thing, but quite the contrary! I am come by Lady 
Ashburton's desire to explain to you the changes which again have 
raised us into hope that he may recover.' Then, in the reaction of 
my fright, I began to cry. What a fool that man must have 
thought me! Poor Lady A, who is devotedly attached to her hus- 
band, has nursed him day and night, till she is so worn out that one 
could hardly recognise her (her sister writes). Next to her and 
their child, it is to us, I believe, that he would be the greatest loss. 
He is the only intimate friend that my husband has left in the 
world — his dearest, most intimate friend through twenty years now. 

I told you in my last — did I not? — that I had got, a little girl of 
fifteen in place "of my fine-lady housemaid; and that the East 
Lothian woman, instead of coming out in a better light when left 
to her own inspirations, was driving Mr. C. out of his senses with 
her blockheadisms and carelessness; and that, much as I disliked 
changes in the dead of winter, there was no help for it, but to send 
that woman back to a part of God's earth where she had been ' well 



1 Oh heavens, the comparison ! it was too true. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



12? 



thought of (Jackie Welsh had said), and where she 'could get 
plenty of good places ' (the Goose herself said). A sorry account 
of the style of service now going in East Lothian, I can only say. 

I hope I shall be more comfortable now — for a while, at least. 
The little girl is extremely intelligent, and active, and willing; is a 
great favourite with her master, thank Heaven! and has never re- 
quired a cross word from me during the six weeks or so that she 
has been in the house. The other is a girl of twenty-four, with an 
excellent three years' character, whom I confess I chose out of some 
dozen that offered, more by character than outward appearance; she 
is only on a month's trial as yet. I rather hope she will do; but it 
is too soon to make up my miud in the four days she has been 
with me. 

I inclose a post-office order for a sovereign to buy what you need 
most, and wear it for the sake of your loving 

Jane W. Carlyle. 



Best regards to your husband and dear George. 



LETTER 264. 
Dr. Russell, Holm Hill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Jan. 6, 1863. 

My dear Dr. Russell, — At last I send you the promised photo- 
graph. It. goes along with this note. You were meant to have it 
on New Year's Day; but I needed to go out for a sheet of millboard, 
and then to cut it to the proper size; and all that, strange to say, 
took more time than I had at my disposal. You wonder, perhaps, 
what a woman like me has to take up her time with. Here, for ex- 
ample, is one full day's work, not to say two. On the New Year's 
morning itself, Mr. C. 'got up off his wrong side,' a by no means 
uncommon way of getting up for him in these overworked times! 
And he suddenly discovered that, his salvation, here and hereafter, 
depended on having, 'immediately, without a moment's delay,' a 
beggarly pair of old cloth boots, that the street-sweeper would 
hardly have thanked him for, 'lined with flannel, and new bound, 
and repaired generally! ' and ' one of my women ' — that, is, my one 
woman and a half — was to be set upon the job! Alas! a regular 
shoemaker would have taken a whole day to it, and wouldn't have 
undertaken such a piece of work besides! and Mr. C. scouted the 
idea of employing a shoemaker, as subversive of his authority as 
master of the house. So, neither my one woman, nor my half one, 
having any more capability of repairing ' generally ' these boots 
than of repairing the Great Eastern, there was no help for me but to 
sit down on the New Year's morning, with a great ugly beast of a 
man's boot in my lap, and scheme, and stitch, and worry over it 
till night; and next morning begin on the other! There, you see, 
were my two days eaten up very completely, and unexpectedly; and 
so it goes on, ' always a something ' (as my dear mother used to 
say). 

The accouuts from Paris continue more favourable. But they 
sound hollow to me somehow. 

Love to Mary. 

Your ever affectionate 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 265. 

The following letter has been forwarded to me by a gentleman 
who modestly desires that his name may not be mentioned. — J. 
A. F. 

To J. T. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Feb. 11, 1863. 

I wish, dear sir, you could have seen how your letter brightened 
up the breakfast- time for my husband and me yesterday morning, 
scattering the misanthropy we are both given to at the beginning 
of the day, like other nervous people who have 'bad nights.' I 
wish you could have heard our lyrical recognition of your letter — 
its 'beautiful modesty,' its 'gentleness,' and 'genuineness;' above 
all I wish you could have heard the tone of real feeling in which 
my husband said, at last, ' I do think, my dear, that is the very 
nicest little bit of good cheer that has come our way for seven 
years!' It might have been thought Mr. C. was quite unused to 
expressions of appreciation from strangers, instead of (as is the 
fact) receiving such almost every day in the year — except Sundays, 
when there is no post. But. oh, the difference between that gra- 
cious, graceful little act of faith of yours, and the intrusive, imper- 
tinent, presumptuous letters my husband is continually receiving, 
demanding, in return for so much 'admiration,' an autograph per- 
■ haps! or to read and give an opinion on some long, cramped MS. of 
the writer's; or to — find a publisher for it even! or to read some 
idiotic new book of the writer's [that is a very common form of 
letter from lady admirers] — say a translation from the German (!) 
and ' write a review of it in one of the quarterlies! ' ' It. would be 
a favour never to be forgotten! ' I should think so indeed. 

Were I to show you the 'tributes of admiration ' to Mr. C.'s 
genius, received through the post during one month, 3'ou, who have 
consideration for the time of a man struggling, as for life, with a 
gigantic task — you, who, as my husband says, are ' beautifully mod- 
est,' would feel your hair rise on end at such assaults on a man un- 



der pretence of admiring him; and would be enabled perhaps, 
better than I can express it in words, to imagine the pleasure it 
must have been to us when an approving reader of my husband's 
books came softly in, and wrapped his wife in a warm, beautiful 
shawl, saying simply — 'There! I don't want to interrupt you, but 
I want to show you my good-will; and that, is how I show it.' 

We are both equally gratified, and thank you heartily. When 
the shawl came, as it did at night, Mr. C. himself wrapped it about 
me, and walked round me admiring it. Ami what think you he 
said? He said, ' I am very glad of that for you, my dear. 1 think 
it is the only bit of real good my celebrity ever brought you! ' 

Yours truly, 

Jane W. Carlyle. 

The letter which called out so many praises was this: — 

' Mrs. Thomas Carlyle. Madam, — Unwilling to interrupt your 
husband in his stern task, I take the liberty of addressing you, and 
hope you will accept from me a woollen long shawl, which I have 
sent by the Parcel Delivery Co., carriage paid, to your address. If 
it does not reach you, please let me know, and I shall make in- 
quiries here, so that it be traced and delivered. I hope the pattern 
will please you, and also that it may be of use to you in a cold 
day. 

' I will also name to you my reason for sending you such a thing. 
My obligations to your husband are many and uuuameably great, 
and I just wish to acknowledge them. All men will come to ac- 
knowledge this, when your husband's power and purpose shall be- 
come visible to them. 

' If high respect, love, and good wishes could comfort him and 
you, none living command more or deserve more. 

' You can take a fit moment to communicate to your husband my 
humble admiration of his goodness, attainments, and great gifts to 
the world ; which I wish much he may be spared to see the world 
begin to appreciate. 

'I remain, &c, 

'J.T.' 

LETTER 266. 
To Mrs. Austin, The Qitt, Annan. 

5 Cheyne Row: Thursday, Feb. 26, 1863. 

I promised you a voluntary letter, Mary dear; and after all the 
waiting you are going to get a begging letter, which is nothing like 
so pleasant for either the writer or the receiver. But those Loudon 
hens! they are creatures without rule or reason. I had just made 
an arrangement with a grocer, who keeps a lot of them, to let me 
have at least seven new-laid eggs a week; and the very day the bar- 
gain was concluded the creatures all struck work again, 'except 
one bantam ! ' So we are eating away at yours, without any hope 
of reinforcement from this neighbourhood. Jane, in a letter to Mr. 
C, kindly offered to send a second supply from Dumfries! but, as 
she does not lay them ' within herself ' (as an old lady at Hadding- 
ton used to say), it seems more natural that I should apply to you 
who do! We have still enough to last about a week. There! I 
have done my begging at the beginning of my letter, instead of re- 
serving it for a postscript, the common dodge, which deceives no- 
body. And now my mind is free to tell any news I may have. 

You would hear of my incomparable small housemaid having 
turned out an incomparable small demon. People say these 
wonderfully clever servants, whether old or young, are always to 
be suspected. Perhaps; still a little cleverness is much nicer than 
stupidity to start, with. Anyhow I don't need to live in vague ap- 
prehensions about either of my present servants on the ground of 
cleverness. 

But I am well enough content with them as servants go. I have 
arranged things on a new footing, which I am in hopes (' hope 
springing eternal in the human mind ') may work better than the 
old one; I have made the cook, who came in place of the Scotch 
one, a general or upper servant; she does all the work upstairs, the 
valeting, &c, besides the cooking; and the new girl is a sort of 
kitchen-maid under her. On this plan there cannot be the same 
room for jealousies and squabbles for power, which have tormented 
me ever since I kept two. 

I had a visit the other day which turned me upside down with 
the surprise of it! I was putting on my bonnet to go out early in 
the day, when Mary came, to say there" was 'a lady at the door, 
who would like if I would see her for a few minutes.' The hour 
being unusual for making calls, and the message being over-modest 
for a caller, I thought it might, be some ' good lady ' with a petition, 
a sort of people I cannot abide, so I asked: ' Is she a lady, do you 
think'.'' 'Well — no, ma'm— I think hardly;' said Mary. '"She 
wouldn't give her name; hut. she said she came from fishshire, or 
something like that!' 'Fishshire? — could it be Dumfriesshire? ' I 
said with a veritable inspiration of genius. 'Show her up,' and I 
heard a heavy body passed into the drawing-room. I hastened in 
and saw, standing in the middle of the floor, a figure like a hay- 
stack, with the reddest of large fat faces, the eyes of which were 
straining towards the door. The woman was dressed in decent 
country clothes and bore no resemblance to any 'lady' 'in the 
created world,' hut looked well-to-do. I stared; I didn't know the 
woman from Adam (as the people here say) ! 



128 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



But she spoke — ' Eh! !' she said; 'Lordkeepme! Isthatyou?' 
— and there was something strangely familiar in the voice. I stared 
again and said — ' Nancy? ' — ' Atweel and it's just Nancy,' answered 
the haystack! and then followed such shaking of hands, as if we 
had been the dearest friends. Do you know who it was? Not the 
little Nancy we used to call 'piggy' at Craigenputtock, but the 
great coarse Nancy with the beard. She who said she ' never 
kenned folk mac sic a wark aboot a bit lee as we did!' She left 
Craigenputtock to marry an old drunken butcher at Thornbill, 
who, happily for her, died in a few years, and then (as she phrased 
it) she ' had another chance,' and she just took it, as she ' thocht it 
might be her last.' that is, she married again a very respectable man 
of her own age, who is something in the Duke's mines at Sanquhar. 
She bore him one son, who is well educated, and clerk in the San 
quhar bank. He had been at Holm Hill on some bank busi 
just before 1 was there last year, and Mrs. Russell had him to tea, 
and said he was a 'nice gentlemanly lad.' Well done, Nancy, 
beard and all the rest of it! Herman had been married before, as 
well as herself, and had a son, who is a haberdasher 'on his own 
account' in this neighbourhood, and he had married, and his wife 
was being confined; and Nancy had been sent up for to 'take care of 

her.' She met one of the Miss W s on the road lief ore leaving 

home, and made her 'put down my address on a bit. of paper;' and 
so there she was — the first day she crossed the threshold after being 
in London five weeks! 1 was really glad to see the creature! she 
looked so glad to see me; except for the shock my personal appear- 
ance manifestly was to her! I gave her wine and cake, and a little 
present, and she went away in a transport. 

I slept away from home last night. I had gone to a place called 
Ealing, some seven miles out of London, to visit Mrs. Oliphant — 
she who wrote the ' Life of Edward Irving ' — and it was too far to 
come back at night. Indeed I never go out after sunset at this 
season. She is a dear little homely woman, who speaks the broadest 
East Lothian Scotch, though she has lived in England since she was 
ten years old! and never was in East Lothian in her life, except 
passing through it in a railway carriage! ! ! But her mother was an 
East, Lothian woman. I wish to heaven I had any place out of 
London, near hand, that I could go to when I liked; I am always 
so much the better for a little change. Life is too monotonous, 
and too dreary in the valley of the shadow of Frederick the Great! 
I wonder how we shall live, what we shall do, where we shall go, 
when that terrible task is ended. 

Kindest regards to Jamie and the bonnie lassies. 

Your affectionate 

Jane Welsh Caelyle. 

LETTER 267. 

To Miss Grace Welsh, Edinburgh.' 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Monday, March 2, 1863. 

My dear Grace, — You say you have seut me ' them,' and you 
have only sent me it; and you say ' the head ' is thought a good 
likeness, and I have got only a standing figure. Was it an involun- 
tary omission on your part, or did you fall away from your good 
intention to send 'them'? Revise it if you did. for I want very 
much to see the likeness of the young man which is considered the 
best. I should like much to see the young man himself; for me as 
for you, a certain melancholy interest attaches to the last of so 
large and so brave a family. 1 Don't wait till you have time and 
heart to write me another nice long letter; but put ' the head' in 
an envelope, and send it at once. 

."\lr. ( '. was again laid hold of by Mr. A the other day in the 

King's Road, aud escorted by him all the way to Regent Street. 
'Really a good, innocent-hearted man! very vulgar, but he can't 
help that, poor fellow!' I have never once met him in the street 
since I made up my mind to speak to him, and invite him to call 
for me, which .Mr. C hadn't the grace to do. I used never to walk 
out without meeting him; but this winter I have taken my walk 
early in the forenoon — when he is busy r , I suppose; just once I saw 
him pass the butcher's door when I was giving him directions about 
a piece of beef, lie had a pretty young lady with him. on whom 
he was ' beaming ' benevolence and all sorts of things. 

I was away a day and night last week at Ealing, visiting Mrs. 
Oliphant. Even that short, ' change of air and scene ' did me good. 
On the strength I got by it I afterwards went to a dinner party at 
the Rectory, and am to dine out again to meet Dickens, and no- 
body else. The people send their carriage for me, and send me 
home; so in this mild weather the enterprise looks safe enough. 

Such a noise about that ' Royal marriage! ' I wish it were over. 
People are so woefully like sheep — all running where they see 
others run, and doing what they see others do. Have you heard 
of that wonderful Bishop Coleuso? Such a talk about him too. 
And he isn't worth talking about for five minutes, except for the 
absurdity of a man making arithmetical onslaughts on the Penta- 
teuch, with a bishop's little black silk apron on! 

Dear love to you all. Your affectionate 

.Teannie W. Carlyi.e.. 

' Robert Welsh's second son: he too is dead; died shortly before her own 
departure out of vale of sorrow. 



LETTER 268. 
Miss Grace Welsh, Craigenvilla, Morningside, Edinburgh. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: March 17, 1863. 

My dear Grace, — I am wanting to know if your pains keep off. 
I hardly dare to hope it in these trying east winds, which are the 
worst sort of weather for that sort of ailment. The last ten days 
have been horrid with us; all the worse for coming after such a 
summery February. My own head has been in a very disorganised 
state indeed. The cold first came into my tongue, swelling it, aud 
making it raw on one side, so that for days I had to live on slops, 
and restrict my speech to monosyllables; then it got into myjaws 
and every tooth in my mouth; aud that is the present state of me. 
1 am writing with my pocket-handkerchief tied over my lower face, 
ami my imagination much overclouded by weary gnawing pain 
there. Decidedly a case for trying your remedy, and I mean to; 
have been thinking of realising some chlorodyne all the week. But 
either it bus been too cold for me to venture up to the druggist's in 
Sloane Square, or I have hud to go somewhere else. 

It is a comfort to reflect, anyhow, that I have not brought these 
aches on myself by rushing 'out for to see' the new Princess, as 
the rest of the world did, or to see the illuminations. I had an 
order sent me from Paris for seats for myself and ' a friend ' in the bal- 
cony erected at Bath House — the best for seeing iu the whole line of 
the procession. But, first, I have no taste for crowds; and, secondly, 
I felt it would be so sad, sitting there, when the host and hostess 
were away in such sickness and sorrow; and, thirdly, I was some- 
what of Mr. C's opinion: That this marriage, the whole nation was 
running mad after, was really less interesting to every individual of 
them than settiug a hen of one's own on a nest of sound eggs would 
be! 

The only interest I take in the little new Priucess is founded on 
her previous poverty and previous humble, homely life. I have 
heard some touching things about that from people connected with 
the Court. When she was on her visit to the Queen after her engage- 
ment, she always wore a jacket. The Queen said, ' I think you 
always wear a jacket; how is that?' 'Oh,' said little Alexandra, 
' I wear it because it is so economical. You can wear it with any 
sort of gown; and you know I have always had to make my own 
gowns. I have never had a lady's-maid, and my sisters and I all 
made our own clothes; I even made my bonnet!' Two or three 
days after the marriage she wrote to her mother: ' I am so happy! 
I have just breakfasted with Bertie' (Albert, her husband); 'and I 
have on a white muslin dressing-gown, beautifully trimmed with 
pink ribbon." Her parents were not so rich as most London shop- 
keepers; had from seven hundred to a thousand a year. That in- 
terests me; and I also feel a sympathy with her in the prospect of 
the bother she will have by-and-by. 

You have never found the missing photograph? I am so sorry 
about it. Please write, ever so little; but I want to know if you 
keep free of pain. I am not up to a long letter. I am glad you are 
going to the Bridge of Allan. It will do Ann good for certain, and 
you probably ; and you will be able to judge of Grace's ' health with 
your own eyes, which are better than other people's reports. 

I have seen nothing of Mrs. George 5 lately, though, of course, 
she would be in at the show. Love to you all". 

Your affectionate 

Jake W. Caklyle. 



LETTER 269. 

Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Friday, March 21, 1863. 

Yes, my dear, the Doctor was right; the cold in my mouth was 
symptomatic of nothing but just cold in the mouth! I was afraid 
myself, for some days, it might turn to a regular influenza; the 
only time I ever had the same sort of thing as bad before being in 
the course of that dangerous influenza I had a good many years 
ago, when I had first to call in Mr. Barnes. But I have got off with 
the ten days of sore tongue and faceache, which is almost cured by 
the west wind we have had for the last two days. 

My aunt Grace has ' suffered martyrs ' (as a French friend of 
mine used to express it) from faceache, and pains of the head, dur- 
ing this last winter; and cured herself (she believes) in a day 
by the new pet medicine chlorodyne. She was in an agony that 
could no longer be borne, and invested half-a-crown in a small bot- 
tle of chlorodyne; and took ten drops every two hours, till she had 
taken as many as fifty: and then fell into a refreshing sleep, and 
(when she wrote) had had no return of the pain for three weeks. 
I haven't much faith in medicines that work as by miracle; and am 
inclined to believe that her pain, having reached its height, had 
been ready to subside of itself when the chlorodyne was taken. 
Still, as there might be some temporary relief, more or less, in 
the thino'. I, too, invested in a small phial, and tqpk ten drops wdien 
I was going to bed one night; and the only effect traceable in my 
case was a very dry dirty mouth next morning. To the best of my 
taste, it was composed of chloroform, strong peppermint, and some 

i One of Robert Welsh's daughters who also died. 
3 Welsh (of Richmond). 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



129 



other carminatives. Has the Doctor used it? The apothecary here 
told me it was not sold much by itself, bvit that a great deal was 
used in the doctors' prescriptions. 

Did I tell you that Mr. C.'s horse came down with him one day, 
and cut its knees to the bone, and had been sold for nine pounds! 
It cost fifty, and was cheap at that. My aunt Grace writes, that 
'Mrs. Fergussou is still praying diligently for Mr. C, and that per- 
haps it was due to her praj'ers that Mr. C. was not hurt on that 
occasion! !' 

Your ever affectionate 

J. W. Caki/ixe. 



LETTER 270. 



Mn 



Braid, Oreen End, Edinburgh. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: May 22, 1863. 

My own Betty, — I am wearying for some news of you. I never 
could lay that proverb ' No news is good news ' sufficiently to heart. 
Whenever I am feeling poorly myself (and I should be almost 
ashamed to say how often that is the case), I fall to fancying that 
you are perhaps ill, and nobody to tell me of it, and I so far away! 
It is so stupid of Ann and Grace, who take so much fatigue on 
themselves, in visiting about in their 'district,' and attending all 
sorts of meetings, that they dou't take a walk out of their district 
now and then to see'how you are going on, and tell me when they 
write. Some news of Betty would make a letter from them infi- 
nitely more gratifying than anything they can say about Dr. 
Candlish, and this and the other preacher and pray-er; and would 
certainly inspire me with more Christian feelings. But, once for 
all, it is their way, and there is no help for it. 

When I came in from a drive one day lately, I was told ' a per- 
son ' was waiting for me; and, on opening the dining-room door, 
where the ' person ' had been put to wait, I saw, sitting facing me, 

Helen D , the Sunny Bank housemaid. It was such a surprise! 

I never liked Helen so well as Marion, the cook; but anyone from 
dear old Sunny Bank was a welcome sight to me now. She has 
been for some years in charge of some children, at a clergyman's in 
Hampshire, and was passing through London with the children 
and their father, who was returned from India, on their way to an 
aunt's near Peebles. She would go on to Haddington, she said, 
'just, to look in on them all, but she wouldn't like to stay there 
now — oh, no!' She was grown very stout and consequential. I 
took her into my bedroom to show her my picture of Sunny Bank, 
which hangs there, and another of the Nungate Bridge; and, while 
looking about, she suddenly exclaimed, 'I declare there is Mrs. 
Braid!' You, too, are framed in a gilt frame, and hung on the 
wall. The likeness must be very good that she knew you at once, 
for she had only seen you twice, she said, ' when you came to 
breakfast.' Her fine talk will astonish the Haddington people 
when she 'looks in upon them.' She spoke very respectfully of 
Miss Donaldson; ' Miss Jess,' she said, ' hadn't the same balance of 
mind that Miss Donaldson had!' But she was no favourite with 
Miss Jess, and knew it. 

Poor Jackie Welsh has lost her aunt, who had been more than a 
mother to her all her life; and she seems quite crushed to the earth 
with her grief. No wonder; she is so much in need of some one to 
sympathise with her, and nurse her in her frequent illnesses; and 
that one aunt was the only person on earth that she felt to belong 
to, and that belonged to her. Her mother is still alive; but her 
mother has never done anything for her but what, she had better 
have left alone — brought her into being! Aud now she (the 
mother) is past being any good to anybody — quite frail and stupe- 
fied. 

Oh, Betty! do you remember the little green thing that I left in 
your care once while I was over in Fife? And when I returned 
you had transplanted it into a yellow glass, which I have on my 
toilet-table to this hour, keeping my rings, &c, in it. Well! I 
must surely have told you long ago that the little thing, with two 
tiny leaves, from my father's grave, had, after twelve months in 
the garden at Chelsea, declared itself a gooseberry -bush ! It has 
gone on flourishing, in spite of want of air and of soil, and is now 
the prettiest round bush, quite full of leaves. 1 I had several times 
asked our old gardener if there is nothing one could do to get the 
bush to bear, if it were only one gooseberry; but he treated the 
case as hopeless. 'A poor wild thing. No; if you want to have 
gooseberries, ma'am, better get a proper gooseberry-bush in its 
place! The old Goth! He can't be made to understand that things 
can have any value but just their garden value. He once, in spite 
of all I could beg and direct, rooted out a nettle I had brought 
from Crawford Churchyard, and with infinite pains got to take root 
and flourish. But, I was going to tell you, one day Lizzy, my 
youngest maid, came running in from the garden to ask me had I 
seen the three little gooseberries on the gooseberry-bush? I rushed 
out, as excited as a child, to look at them. And there they were — 
.three little gooseberries, sure enough! And immediately I had 
settled it in my mind to send you one of them in a letter when full 
grown. But, alas! whether it was through too much staring at 
them, or too much east wind, or through mere delicacy in 'the 

1 It still stands there, green and leafy, and with berries; how strange and 
memorable to me now 1 



poor wild thing,' I can't tell ; only the result, that the three bits of 
gooseberries, instead of growing larger, grew every day less, till 
they reached the smallness of pin-heads, and then dropped on the 
ground! I could have cried when the last one went. 

You remember my little Charlotte? I had a visit from her yes- 
terday; and she looks much more sedate and proper than when I 
had to put her away. She is ' third housemaid at the Marquis of 
Camden's,' and lives in the country, which is good for her. She 
sent her compliments to 'Betty.' 

My present pair of girls go on very peaceably. They are neither 
of them particularly bright; but they are attentive, aud willing, 
and well behaved. I often look back with a shudder over the six 
mouths of that East. Lothian Elizabeth! Her dinners blackened to 
cinders! her constant crashes of glass and china! her brutal man- 
ners! her lumpish insensibility and ingratitude! Aud to think that 
that woman must have been considered above the average of East 
Lothian servants, or Jackie Welsh wouldn't have sent her to me. 
What an idea it gives one of the state of things in East Lothian! 

And now good-bye, Betty, dear. There is a long letter for you; 
which will, I hope, soon draw me a few lines from you in return. 
I am anxious to know how yourself, and your husband, and 
George have stood these cold spring weeks. My kind regards to 
them. 

Your ever affectionate 

Jane Welsh Cabltle. 

LETTER 271. 
Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: June 3, 1863. 

I had something to tell you which did not find room in my last 
letter. The name of Mrs. Oliphant's publisher is Blackelt; aud he 
has a smart wife, who came with him to dinner at Mrs. Oliphant's 
when I was there. They were very (what we call in Scotland) 
'up-making' to me, and pressed me to visit them at Ealing, which 
I hadn't the least thought of doing. Well, some weeks ago, Mr. C. 
was just, come in from his ride, very tired, and, to do him justice, 
very ill humoured, when Mary put her head in at the drawing- 
room door and said, ' Mrs. Blackett wished to know if she could 
see me for a few minutes?' I went out hurriedly, knowing Mr. 
C.'s temper wouldn't be improved by hearing of people he didn't 
want coming after me. I told Maty to take the lady into the 
dining-room (where was no fire), and before going down myself 
put a shawl about me, chiefly to show her she musn't stay. On 
entering the room, the lady's back was to me; and she was standing 
looking out into the (so-called) garden; but I saw at once it wasn't 
the Mrs. Blackett I had seen. This one was very tall, dressed in 
deep black, and when she turned round, she showed me a pale 
beautiful face, that was perfectly strange to me! But I was no 
stranger to her seemingly, for she glided swiftly up to me like a 
dream, and took my head softly between her hands and kissed my 
brow again and again, saying in a low dreamlike voice, ' Oh, you 
dear! you dear! you dear! Don't, you know me?' I looked into 
her eyes in supreme bewilderment. At last light dawned on me, 
and I said one word — 'Bessy?' ' Yes, it is Bessy! ' And then the 
kissing wasn't all on one side, }'ou may fancy. It was at last 
Bessy — not Mrs. Blackett, but Mrs. B , — who stood there, hav- 
ing left, her husband in a cab at the door, till she had seen me first. 
They were just arrived from Cheshire, where they had gone to see 
one "of his sons, who had been dangerously ill, and were to start by 
the next train for St. Leonards. They had only a quarter of an 
hour to stay. He is a good, intelligent-looking man; aud while he 
was talking all the time with Mr. O. Bess}' said beautiful things 
about him to me, enough to show that if he wasn't her first love, he 
was at least a very superior being in her estimation. They pressed 
me to come to them at St. Leornards, and I promised indefinitely 
that I would. 

About a fortnight ago, Bessy walked in one morning after 
breakfast. She 'had had no peace for thinking about me; I 
looked so ill, she was sure I had some disease! Had I?' I told 
her 'None that I could specify, except the disease of old age, gen- 
eral weakness, and discomfort.' Reassured on that head, she con- 
fided to me that ' I looked just as Mrs. B had looked when 

she was dying of cancer! ! ' And she had come up, certain that I 
had a cancer, to try and get me away to be nursed by her, and at- 
tended by her husband. Besides she had heard there was so much 
small-pox in London; 'and if I took it, aud died before she had 
seen me again, she thought she would never have an hour's happi- 
ness in the world again!' Oh, Bessy, Bessy! just the same old 
woman — an imagination morbid almost to insanity! ' Would I go 
back with her that night anyhow?' 'Impossible!' 'Then when 
would I come? and she would come up again to fetch me! ' That 
I would not hear of; but I engaged to go so soon as it was a little 
warmer. And to-day I have written that I will come for two or 
three days on Monday next. She is wearing mourning for the 
mother and eldest brother of her husband, who have both died 
since her marriage. 

And now I mustn't begin another sheet. 

Your ever affectionate 

J. W. Cakltle. 



130 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



LETTER 272. 
To Mrs. Austin, The Gill, Annan. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Sunday, July 5, 1863. 

My dear little woman, — Every day, since I got your letter, I have 
put off answering it till the morrow, in hope always that the mor- 
row would find me more up to writing an answer both long and 
pleasant. But, alas! I had best not wait any longer for ' a more 
convenient season,' but just write a stupid little note, according to 
my present disability; as a time when my head will be clearer, and 
my heart lighter, and my stomach less sick, is not to be calculated on. 

I went some three weeks ago to St. Leonards, the pleasantest 
place I know; and stayed from Monday to Saturday, in circum- 
stances the most favourable to health that could be desired. The 
finest sea air in the world — a large, airy, quiet house close on the 
shore; a carriage to drive out in twice a day; a clever physician for 
host, who dieted me on champagne and the most nourishing delica- 
cies; and for hostess, a gentle, graceful, loving woman, who, be- 
sides being full of interest for me as a heroine of romance, has the 
more personal interest for me of having been my — servant, about 
thirty years ago; and of having been sincerely mourned by me as 
— dead! 

Well, I returned from that visit quite set up ; and the improve- 
ment lasted some two or three days. Then I turned as sick as a 
dog one evening, and had to take to bed ; and the sickness not abat- 
ing after two days, during which time, to Mr. C.'s great dismay, 
I could eat nothing at all (nothing in the shape of illness ever 
alarms Mr. C. but that of not eating one's regular meals), Mr. 
Barnes was sent for, who ordered mustard blisters to my stomach, 
and unlimited soda-water ' with a little brandy in it.' In about a 
week I was on foot again — but weak as a dishclout! And that is 
my condition to the present hour. I don't see much chance of bet- 
tering it here — and Mr. C. seems determined to stick to his ' work ' 
all this summer and autumn, as he did the last. It is very bad for 
him, and very bad for the work. He would get on twice as fast if 
he would give himself a holiday. But there is no persuading him. 
as you know; 'vara obstinate in his own wae!' 1 And as I was 
away last autumn a whole mouth by myself, I cannot have the face- 
to leave him again this year, unless for a few days at a time, when 
I am hardly missed till I am back again. Besides, the present ser- 
vants are not adapted to being left to their own devices. They do 
very well with overlooking and direction; and the week I was at 
St. Leonards nothing went wrong; but, for that long, they could 
have their orders for every day; and as I did not tell them for cer- 
tain what day I should be back, there was a constant wholesome ex- 
pectation of my return. 

Mr. Carlyle has got his tent up in the back area, and writes away 
there without much inconvenience, as yet, from the heat. He has 
changed his dinner hour to half-past three instead of seven; then 
he sleeps for an hour, and then goes for his ride in the cool of the 
evening. 

The horse Lady Ashburton sent him is a pretty, swift little crea- 
ture, and very sure-footed, which is the first quality for a horse 
whose rider always goes at a gallop. But Mr. C. draws many 
plaintive comparisons between this horse and poor old Fritz, as to 
moral qualities. This one 'shows no desire to please him what- 
ever; only goes at its best pace when its head is turned towards its 
own stable! Fritz was always endeavouring to ascertain his wishes 
and to gain his approbation; it was a horse of very superior sense 
and sensibility, and had a profound regard for him.' 

Kindest love to you all. 

Your ever affectionate 

Jane Caklyle. 

LETTER 273. 

Mrs. Russell. Holm Hill. 
6 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Wednesday night, Sept. 16, 1863. 

How absurd of you, my dearest Mary, to make so many apolo- 
gies about a trifling request like that! Why, if you had asked for 
twenty autographs, Mr. C. would have written them in twenty 
minutes, and would have written them for you with pleasure. 
Certainly, my dear, as I have often said before, faith is not your 
Strong point! 

Well, we have done our ' outing,' as the people here call going 
into the country; and it is all the 'outing' we are likely to do till 
next summer (if we live to see next summer), unless Lord Ashbur- 
ton should be well enough, and myself well enough, to make 
another expedition to the Grange during the winter. 

I had some idea of going to Folkestone, where Miss Davenport 
Bromley has a house at present, aud pressed me to come and take 
some tepid sea-water baths. But my experience of the wretched 
ness of being from home, with this devilry in my arm, has decided 
me to remain stationary for the present. In spite of the fine air 
and beauty of the Grange, ami Lady Ashburton's superhuman 
kindness, I had no enjoyment of anything all the three weeks we 
stayed: being in constant pain, day and night, and not able to 
comb my own hair, or do anything in which a left arm is needed as 



1 Cumberland man's account of the Scotch. 



well as a right one! I think I told you I had had pain more or less 
in my left arm for two months before I left London. It was trifling 
in the beginning; indeed, nothing to speak of, when I did not 
move it backwards or upwards. I did not think it worth sending 
for Mr. Barnes about it at first, and latterly he was away at the 
sea-side for some weeks, having been ill himself. There was 
nobody else I liked to consult; besides, I always flatter myself 
that anything that ails me more than usual is sure to be removed 
by change of scene, so I bore on, in hope that so soon as I got to 
the Grange the arm would come all right. It did quite the re- 
verse, however; for it became worse and worse, aud I was 
driven at last to consult Dr. Quain, when he came down to see 
Lord A. He told me, before I had spoken a dozen words, that 
it wasn't rheumatism I had got, but neuralgia (if any good 
Christian would explain to me the difference between these 
two things I should feel edified and grateful). It had been pro- 
duced, he said, by extreme weakness, and that I must be stronger 
before any impression could be made on it. Could I take quinine? 
1 didn't kuow; I would try; so he sent me quinine pills from Lon- 
don, to be taken twice a day if they gave me no headache, which 
they don't do, ajid an embrocation of opium, aconite, camphor, and 
chloroform (I tell you all this that you may ask your Doctor if he 
thinks if right, or can suggest auything else); moreover, I was to 
take castor oil every two or three days. I have been following 
these directions for a fortnight, and there is certainly an improve- 
ment in my general health. I feel less cowardly aud less fanciful, 
and feel less disgust at human food; but although the embrocation 
relieves the pain while I am applying it, and for a few minutes 
after, it is as stiff and painful as ever when left to itself. 

Yours ever affectionately, 

Jane Cari.yle. 

Of all these dreary sufferings and miseries, which had been 
steadily increasing for years past, I perceive now, with pain and 
remorse, I had never had the least of a clear notion ; such her in- 
vincible spirit in bearing them, such her constant effort to hide them 
from me altogether. My own poor existence, as she also well knew, 
was laden to the utmost pitch of strength, aud sunk in perpetual 
muddy darkness, by a task too heavy for me — task which seemed 
impossible, and as if it would end me instead of I it. I saw no 
company, had no companion but my horse (fourteen miles a day, 
winter time, mainly in the dark), rode in all. as I have sometimes 
counted, above 30.000 miles for health's sake, while writing that 
unutterable book. The one bright point in my day was from half 
an hour to twenty minutes' talking with her. after my return from 
those thrice dismal rides, while 1 sat smoking (on the hearthrug, 
with my back to the jamb, puffing firewards — a rare invention!) 
and sipping a spoonful of brandy in water, preparatory to the hour 
of sleep I had before dinner. Site, too, the dear and noble soul, 
seemed to feel that this was the eye of her day, the flower of all 
her daily endeavour in the world. I found her oftenest stretched 
on the sofa (close at my right hand, I between her and the tire), 
her drawing-room aud self all in the gracefullest and most perfect 
order, and waiting with such a welcome; ah, me! ah, me! She 
was weak, weak, far weaker than I understood; but to me was 
bright always as stars and diamonds; nay, I should say a kind of 
cheery sunshine in those otherwise Egyptian days. She had al- 
ways something cheerful to tell me of (especially if she had been 
out, or had had visitors); generally something quite pretty to re- 
pott (in her sprightly, quiet, and ever-genial way). At lowest, 
nothing of unpleasant was ever heard from her; all that was gloomy 
she was silent upon, and had strictly .hidden away. Once, I re- 
member, years before this, while she suffered under one of her bad 
influenzas (little known to me how bad), I came in for three succes- 
sive eveniugs, full of the ' Battle of Molwitz' (which I had at last 
got to understand, much to my inward triumph), aud talked to her 
all my half hour about nothing else. She answered little (' speak- 
ing not good for me,' perhaps); but gave no sign of want of inter- 
est — nay, perhaps did not quite want it, and yet confessed to me, 
several years afterwards, her principal thought was, 'Alas, I shall 
never see this come to print; I am hastening towards death instead! ' 
These were, indeed, dark days for us both, and still darker unknown 
to us were at hand. One evening, probably the 1st or 2nd of Oc- 
tober, 1863 — but for long years I had ceased writing in my note 
books, and find nothing marked on that to me most memorable of 
dates — on my return from riding, I learned rather with satisfaction 
for her sake that she had ventured on a drive to the General Post 
Office to see her cousin, Mrs. Godby, 'matron' of that establish- 
ment; aud would take tea there. After sleep aud dinner, I was 
still without her; ' Well, well. I thought, what a nice little story 
will she have to tell me soon!' and lay quietly down on the sofa, 
and comfortably waited — still comfortably, though the time (an 
hour or more) was longer than I had expected. At length came 
the welcome sound of her wheels; I started up — she rather lingered 
iu appearing, — I rang, got no clear answer, rushed down, and, oh, 
what a sight awaited me! She was still in the cab, Larkin speaking 
to her (Larkin lived next door, and for him she had sent, carefully 
saving me!) Oh, Heavens! and, alas! both Larkin and I were 
needed. She had had a frightful street-accident in St. Martin's, 
and was now lamed and in agony! This was the account I got by 
degrees. 



LETTERS A. 



ND 



MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



131 



Mrs. Godby sent a maid-servant out with her to catch an omni- 
bus; maid was stupid, unhelpful, and there happened to be some 
excavation on the street which did not permit the omnibus to come 
close. Just as nfy poor little darling was stepping from the kerb- 
stone to run over (maid merely looking on), a furious cab rushed 
through the interval; she had to stop spasmodically, then still more 
spasmodically try to keep from falling flat on the other side, and 
ruining her poor neuralgic arm. In vain, this latter effort; she did 
fall, lame arm useless for help), and in the desperate effort she had 
torn the sinews of the thigh-bone, and was powerless to move or 
stand, and in pain unspeakable. Larkin and I lifted her into a 
chair, carried her with all our steadiness (for every shake was mis- 
ery) up to her bed, where, iu a few minutes, the good Barnes, 
luckily found at home, made appearance with what help there was. 
Three weeks later, this letter gives account in her own words. 

The torment of those first three days was naturally horrible; but 
it was right bravely borne, and directly thereupon all things looked 
up, she herself, bright centre of them, throwing light into all things. 
It was wonderful to see how in a few days she seemed to be almost 
happy, contented with immunity from pain, and proud to have 
made (as she soon did) her little bedroom into a boudoir, all in her 
own likeness. She sent for the carpenter, directed him in every- 
thing, had cords and appliances put up for grasping with and get ling 
good of her hand, the one useful limb now left. It was wonderful 
what she had made of that room, bj r carpenter and housemaid, in a 
few hours — all doue in her own image, as I said. On a little table 
at her right hand, among books and other useful furniture, she 
gaily pointed out to me a dainty little bottle of champagne, from 
which, by some leaden article screwed through the cork, and need- 
ing only a touch, she could take a spoonful or teaspoonful at any 
time, without injuring the rest: 'Is not that pretty? Excellent 
champagne (Miss Bromley's kind gift), and does me good, I can tell 
you.' I remember this scene well, and that, in the love of gentle 
and assiduous friends, and their kind little interviews and minis- 
trations, added to the hope she had, her sick room had compara- 
tively an almost happy air, so elegant and beautiful it all was, and 
her own behaviour in it always was. Not many evenings after the 
last of these two letters, I was sitting solitary over my dreary Prus- 
sian books, as usual, in the drawing-room, perhaps about 10 p.m., 
room perhaps (without my knowledge) made trimmer than usual, 
when suddenly, without warning given, the double door from her 
bedroom went wide open, and my little darling, all radiant iu grace- 
ful evening dress, followed by a maid with new lights, came glid- 
ing in to me, gently stooping, leaning on a fine Malacca cane, saying 
silently but so eloquently, ' Here am I come back to you, dear! ' It 
was among the bright moments of my life — the picture of it still 
vived with me, and will always be. Till now I had not seeu her in 
the drawing-room, had only heard of those tentative pilgrimings 
thither with her maid for support. But now I considered the vic- 
tory as g6od as won, and everything fallen into its old course again 
or a better. Blind that we were! This was but a gleam of sun- 
light, and ended swiftly in a far blacker storm of miseries than ever 
before. 

That ' bright evening ' of her re-entrance to me in the drawing- 
room must have been about the end of October or beginning of No- 
vember, shortly following these two letters, ' Monday evening, No- 
vember 23' (as I laboriously make out the date); 'the F s,' 

F and his wife, the pleasantest, indeed almost the only pleas- 
ant evening company we now used to have; intelligent, cheerful, 
kindly, courteous, sincere (they had come to live near us, and we 
hoped for a larger share of such evenings, of which probably this 
was the first? Alas, to me, too surely it was iu effect the last!) 
Cheerful enough this evening was; my darling sat latterly on the 

sofa, talking chiefly to Mrs. F ; the F -s gone, she silently 

at once withdrew to her bed, saying nothing to me of the state she 
was iu, which I found next morning to have been alarmingly mis- 
erable, the prophecy of one of the worst of nights, wholly without 
sleep and full of strange and horrible pain. And the nights and 
days that followed continued steadily to worsen, day after day, and 
month after month, no end visible. It was some ten months now 
before I saw her sit with me again in this drawing-room — iu body 
weak as a child, but again composed into quiet, and in soul beau- 
tiful as ever, or more beautiful than ever, for the rest of her ap- 
pointed time with me, which indeed was brief, but is now blessed 
to look back upon, and an unspeakable favour of Heaven. I often 

think of that last evening with the F s, which we hoped to be 

the first of a marked increase of such, but which to me was essen- 
tially the last of all; the F— — s have been here since, but with her 
as hostess (in my presence) never more, and the reflex of that bright 
evening, now all pale and sad, shines, privately incessant, into every 
meeting we have. 

Barnes, for some time, said the disease was 'influenza, merely 
accidental cold, kindling up all the old injuries and maladies,' 
and promised speedy amendment; but week after week gave dis- 
mally contrary evidence. ' Neuralgia! ' the doctors then all said, 
by which they mean they know not in the least what; in this case, 
such a deluge of intolerable pain, indescribable, unaidable pain, 
as I had never seen or dreamt of, and which drowned six or eight 
months of my poor darling's life as in the blackness of very death ; 
her recovery at last, and the manner of it, an unexpected miracle 
to me. There seemed to be pain iu every muscle, misery in every 



nerve, no sleep by night or day, no rest from struggle and desper- 
ate suffering. Nobody ever known to me could more nobly and 
silently endure pain; but here for the first time I saw her van- 
quished, driven hopeless, as it were looking into a wild chaotic 
universe of boundless woe — on the horizon, only death or worse. 
Oil, I have seen such expressions in those dear and beautiful eyes 
as exceeded all tragedy! (one night in particular, when she rushed 
desperately out to me, without speech; got laid and wrapped by 
me on the sofa, and gazed silently on all the old familiar objects 
and me). Her pain she would seldom speak of, but, when she did, 
it was in terms as if there were no language for it; 'any honest 
pain, mere pain, if it were of cutting my flesh with knives, or saw- 
ing my bones, I could hail that as a luxury in comparison! ' 

And the doctors, so far as I could privately judge, effected ap- 
proximately to double the disease. We had many doctors, skilful 
men of their sort, and some of them (Dr. Quain, especially, who 
absolutely would accept no pay, and was unwearied in attendance 
and invention) were surely among the friendliest possible; but 
each of them — most of all each new one— was sure to effect only 
harm, tried some new form of his opiums and narcotic poisons 
without effect; on the whole I computed, 'Had there been no 
doctors, it had been only about half as miserable." Honest Barnes 
admitted in the end, ' We have been able to do nothing.' We had 
sick-nurses, a varying miscellany, Catholic 'Sisters of Mercy' (ig- 
nominiously dismissed by her "third or fourth night, the instant 
she found they were in real substance Papist propagandists. Oh, 
that '3 a.m.' when her bell awoke me too, as well as Maggie 
Welsh, and the French nun had to disappear at once, under rugs 
on a sofa elsewhere, and vanish altogether when daylight came!) 
Maggie Welsh had come in the second week of December, and 
continued, I think, at St. Leonards latterly, till April ended. De- 
cember was hardly out till there began to be speech among the 
doctors of sea-side and change of air: the one hope they continued 
more and more to say; and we also thinking of St. Leonards and 

our Dr. B and bountiful resources there, waited only for 

spring weater, and the possibility of flight thither. How, in all 
this tearing whirlpool of miseries, anxieties, and sorrows, I con- 
trived to go on with my work is still an astonishment to me. For 
one thing, I did not believe in these doctors, nor that she (if let 
alone of them) had not yet strength left. Secondly, I always 
counted ' Frederick ' itself to be the prime source of all her sor- 
rows as well as my own; that to end it was the condition of new 
life to us both, of which there was a strange dull hope in me*. Not 
above thrice can I recollect when, on stepping out in the morning, 
the thought struck me, cold and sharp, 'She will die, and leave 
thee here!' and always before next day I had got it cast out 
of me again. And, indeed, in all points except one I was as if 
stupefied more or less, and flying on like those migrative swallows 
of Professor Owen, after my strength was done and coma or dream 
had supervened, till the Mediterranean Sea was crossed! But the 
time altogether looks to me like a dim nightmare, on which it is 
still miserable to dwell, and of which I will after this endeavour 
only to give the dates. — T. C. 

LETTER 274. 

To Miss Grace Welsh, Edinburgh. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Tuesday, Oct. 80, 1863. 

Thank you a thousand times, dearest Grace, for your long, most 
moving letter. It is not because of it that I write to-day, for I 
was meaning to write to-day at any rate; indeed, it rather makes 
writing more difficult to me: I have cried so over it, that I have 
given myself a bad headache in addition to my other lamings. 
But a little letter I will write by to-day's post, and a bigger one 
when I am more able. 

I wrote a few lines to Mrs. Craven, in answer to her announce- 
ment of that dear girl's angel death. I told her of my accident, 
and was trusting to her telling you; but as I told her I had kept 
you in ignorance of it in the beginning, lest Elizabeth and you and 
Ann,' with your terrible experience of such an accident, might be 
alarmed and distressed for me more than (I hoped) there would 
prove cause for; she thought, perhaps, I wished you to remain un- 
aware of it, even when I reported nryself progressing more favour- 
ably than could have been predicted. I need not go into the how 
of the fall; I will tell you all ' particulars ' when I gain more facility 
in writing; enough to say that exactly this day three weeks I was 
plashed down on the pavement of St. Martin -le-Grand (five miles 
from home) on my left side (the arm of which couldn't break the 
fall), and hurt all down from the hip- joint so fearfully, and on the 
already lamed shoulder besides, that I couldn't stir; but had to be 
lifted up by people who gathered round me (a policeman among 
them) and put into a cab. Elizabeth can fancy my drive home (five 
miles), and Hie getting of me out of the cab and upstairs to bed! 
Wasn't I often thinking of her all the time? 

' My ' doctor came immediately, and found neither breakage of 
the leg nor dislocatioon; but the agony of pain, he said, would have 
been less had the bone broken : I thought of Elizabeth, and doubted 

1 Poor Elizabeth had slipped and fallen on the street; dislocated her thigh- 
bone; got it wrong set; then, after long months of misery, undergone a set- 
ting of it ' right '—but is lame to this day. 



132 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



that! Still, for three days and three sleepless nights it was such 
agony as I had never known before; after that, the pain weut 
gradually out of the leg, unless when I moved it, for some bed 
operations, &r., &c. But the arm, with its complication of sprain 
and neuralgia, has given me a sad time, till these last two days tbat 
it has returned almost to the state it was in before the fall. A 
week ago Mr. Barnes made me get out of bed for fear of ' a bad 
back,' and sit on i ml on a sofa in my bedroom, like Miss Biffin (the 
little egg-shaped woman that used to be shown; and two days ago 
he compelled me to walk a few steps, supported with his arms, and 
to do the same thing at least twice a day. It has been a case of 
' lacerated sinews; ' and he said the tendency of the muscles was to 
contract themselves after such a thing, and if 1 did not force myself 
to put down my foot now and then, I should never be able to walk 
at all! Such a threat, and his determined manner, enabled me to 
make the effort, which costs, I can tell you, But, at whatever cost 
of pain and nervousness, 1 have to-day passed through the door of 
my bedroom (which opens into the drawing-room luckily), using 
one of the maids as a crutch; so you see I am already a good way 
towards recovery, for which I feel, every moment, deep thankful- 
ness to God. To have experienced such agony, and to be delivered 
from it comparatively, makes one feel one's dependence as nothing 
else does. 

For the rest, as dear Betty is always saying, ' I have niouy mer- 
cies.' My servants have been most kind and unwearied in their 
attentions; my friends more like sisters or mothers than common- 
place friends. Oh, I shall have such wonderful kindnesses to tell 
you of when I can write freely! My third cousin, Mrs. Godby, and 
several others, wished to stay with me; but the ' nursing' I needed 
was of quite a menial sort; I should still have sought it from my 
servants, and a lady-nurse would only have given them more to do, 
and been dreadfully in the way of Mr. C. My great object, after 
getting what wailing on I absolutely needed, has been that the 
usual quiet routine of the house should not be disturbed around 
Mr. O, who thinks, I am sure, that he has been victimised enough 
in haviug to answer occasional letters of inquiry about me. And 
now I must conclude for the present. I am so sorry for poor 
Robert's fingers. Be sure to send me the copy of Grace's ' words to 
her mother. Oh, poor souls 1 what woe, and what mercy! 

Your loving niece, 

Jane W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 275. 
Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill, Thornhill. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Monday, Oct. 86, 1863. 

Dearest Mary, — Though I still write to you in pencil I have pro- 
gressed. I walk daily from my bedroom to the drawing-room, after 
a fashion; my sound arm round Mary's neck, and her arm round 
my waist. I think there is more nervousness than pain in the dif- 
ficulty with which I make this little journey. For the rest, I don't 
lie much on my sofa, but sit on end. I cannot, however, sit up at 
table to write with pen and ink ; I must write with cushions at my 
back, and with the paper on my knees; in which circumstances a 
pencil is less fatiguing than pen and ink, as well as less-destructive 
to my clothes. 

The unlucky leg will in a week or two, I hope, be all right. I 
have no pain whatever in it now, except when I try to use it; and 
then the pain is not great, and gets daily a trifle less. But my arm 
is still a bad business; especially at night I suffer much from it. 
It spoils my sleep, and that again reacts upon it and makes it worse. 
I cannot satisfy myself how much of the pain I am now suffering 
is the effect of the fall — how much that of the old neuralgia; and 
Mr. Barnes can throw no light on that for me, or suggest any 
remedy: at least he doesn't. It seems to me he regards my leg as 
his patient, and my arm as Dr. Quain's patient, which he has 
nothing to do with; and he is rather glad to be irresponsible for it, 
seeing nothing to be done! He did once say in a careless way that 
plain bark and soda, ' one of the most nauseous mixtures he 
knew of in this world,' was better than 'my quinine;' but when 
I asked, would it have as good an effect on my spirits as the 
quinine had had, he said, ' Oh, I can't promise you that; it would 
probably make you sick and low; better keep to your lady-like 
quinine!' 

Ask the Doctor if he sees any superiority in plain bark and soda? 
I don't care how nauseous a medicine is if it do me good. 
1 Another of my uncle Robert's daughters has died of consumption. 
Grace (my aunt) has written me a long, minute account of her 
death-bed — one of the saddest things I ever read in my life. It 
quite crushed down the heart in one for days. The poor young 
womau's sufferings, and the deaf mother's, and, oh, such a heap 
of misery is set. before one so vividly ; and then the consolation! It 
is a comfort to know that the dying girl was supported through her 
terrible trial by her religious faith and hope; a comfort, and the 
only comfort possible, conceivable— if it had stopped there. But 
you know my feelings about religious excitement — ecstatics; I can- 
not regard that as a genuine element of religion. Was not Christ 
Himself, on the cross, calm, simple? Did He not even pray that, 



1 The poor niece's. 



if it were possible, the cup might pass from Him? Was there ever 
in the whole history of His life a trace of excitement? The fuss 
and excitement that seem to have gone on about this poor young 
death-bed, then, jars on my mind; the working up of the sufferer 
herself, and the working up of themselves (the onlookers) into a 
sort of hysterical ecstasy is almost as painful to me as the rest of 
the sad business; I feel it to be agetting-up of a death-bed scene to 
be put into a tract! And in the heart of it all such an amount of 
real terrible anguish; and the grand solemn faith that could bear 
all, and triumph over all, harrassed by earthly interference and 
excitations! I will send the letter; perhaps you will find all this 
wrong in me; we could never agree about the 'revivals.' Never 
mind; we love one another all the same. 

My kindest regards to the Doctor. 

Your affectionate 

Jane Carlvle. 

Send back Grace's letter. 

LETTER 276. 

, To Miss Margaret Welsh, Liverpool. 

Chelsea: November 2, 1863. 

Dearest Maggie, — The very sight of your letter was a relief to 
me, for I knew that unless dear Jackie had been a little better you 
couldn't have written asmuch! Next time do write a mere bulletin, 
or 1 can't press you to ' be quick ! ' From the account you give, I 
draw far better hope about him than, I dare say, you meant to give 
in writing it. But there seems to be so much vitality in the poor 
little fellow; his caring to be read to, his little speech, all that 
sounds as if there were a good basis of life at the bottom of all this 
illness. God grant he may soon be pronounced convalescent! 

I am very convalescent! I can move about the room with a stick, 
and the pain in my arm has been considerably less for the last few 
days, when I make no attempt to move it more than it likes. I at- 
tribute the improvement to a new medicine, recommended to me by 
Carlyle's friend, Mr. Foxton, who had been cured by it. Before 

taking it I asked the advice of Dr. B at St. Leonards (a man of 

real ability), and he sent me a proper prescription, and directions 
about using it. It is called Iodide of Potash, and is taken with 
quantities of fluid ; and along with it have to be taken pills of Valeri- 
ateor Quinine. If it cures me, and you ever need curing, you shall 
have the prescription. 

In the beginning of the arm-business, some four months ago now, 
I fancied I had given my arm an unconscious sprain, as the pain 
in attempting to move it preceded any aching or shooting, inde- 
pendent of attempting to move it. The Doctor persuaded me ' it 
was all neuralgia.' Since my accident that sprained feeling has 
been dreadful, till within the last few days. And though Mr. 
Barnes always declared ' it was all rheumatism,' it has been impos- 
sible to persuade me that the same blow received on my shoulder 
and hip-joint at the same time, and damaging the sinews in my 
thigh, would not damage the sinews in my arm also. ' That stands 
to reason ' (as old Helen used to say). 

Of course, if rheumatism is about in one, it will gather to any 
strained part; and so there has been plenty of rheumatic pain, besides 
the pain from the hurt. But I am certain it is more than rheumatism 
that hinders me from lifting my arm. And having a faculty of 
remembering things long after date, I remembered the other day 
that I took to using the dumb-bells for two or three days, to make 
myself stronger pa./ - vine force, when I was feeling so weak and ill 
early in summer (it must have been just before I noticed the stiff- 
ness of my arm), and that I left them off because my arms felt too 
weak to use them, and ached after. It would be a comfort to my 
weak mind to be assured that I, then and there, sprained some 
sinew in my arm, anil all the rest would have followed in the course 
of nature; and I might give up vague terrors about angina pectoris, 
paralysis, disease of the spine, &c. &c. Best stop. 

Yours affectionately, 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 277. 
Mrs. Simmonds, Oakley Street, Cheslea. 

5 Cheyne Row: Nov. 3, 1863. 

My darling. — I am so thankful that you are all right. And to 
think of your writing on the third day after your confinement the 
most legible — indeed, the only legible — note I ever had from you in 
my life. 

"Now about this compliment offered me, which you are pleased to 
call a ' favor ' (to you), I don't know what to say. I wish I could 
go and talk it over; but, even if I could go in a cab one of these 
next dry days, I couldn't drive up your stairs in a cab! I should be 
greatly pleased that your baby bore a name of mine. But the God- 
motherhood? There seems to me one objection to that, which is a 
fatal one — I don't belong to the English Church; and the Scotch 
Church, which I do belong to, recognises no Godfathers and God- 
mothers. The father takes all the obligations on himself (serves him 
right!). I was present at a Church of England christening for the 
first time, when the Blunts took me to see their baby christened, and 
it looked to me a very solemn piece of work ; and that Mr. Maurice 



LETTERS A 



-ND 



MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



133 



and Julia Bhiut (the Godfather and Godmother) had to take upon 
themselves, before God and man, very solemn engagements, which 
it was to be hoped, they meant to fulfil ! I should not have liked to 
bow and murmur; and undertake all they did, without meaning to 
fulfil it according to my best ability. Now, my darling, how could 
I dream of binding myself to look after the spiritual welfare of any 
earthly baby ? I, who have no confidence in my own spiritual wel- 
fare! " I am not wanted to, it may perhaps be answered — you mean 
to look after that yourself without interference. What are these 
"spoken engagements then? A mere form; that is, apiece of hum- 
bug. How could I. in cold blood, go through with a ceremony in 
achurch, to which neither the others nor myself attach a grain of ver- 
acity? If you can say anything to the purpose, I am very willing 
to be proved mistaken; and in that case very willing to stand God- 
mother to a baby, that on the third day is not at all red! 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane Carlyle. 
LETTER 278. 

Mrs. Simmonds, 82 Oakley Street, Chelsea. 

5 Cheynf Row: Friday, Nov. 27, 1803. 

Dear Pet, — I am not the least well, and should just about as soon 
walk overhead into the Thames as into a roomful of people! At 
the same time, I wish to pay my respects to the baby on this her 
next grand performance after getting herself born, and to place in 
, her small hands a talisman worthy of the occasion, and suitable to a 
baby born on ' A.11 Saints' Day ' (whatever sort of day that may be). 
As I shouldn't at all recommend running a long pin into the crea- 
ture, I advise you to wear the brooch in its present form till the 
baby is sufficiently hardened, from its present pulpy condition, to 
bear something tied round its throat, without fear of strangulation! 
And then you may remove the pin, and attach the talisman to a 
string in form of a locket. But what is it ? ' What does it do ' (as 
aservant of mine once asked me in respect of ' a lord '). What it is, 
my dear, is an emblematic mosaic, made from bits of some tomb 
of the early Christians, and representing an early Christian device: 
the Greek cross, the palm leaves, and all the rest of it. Worn by 
the like of me, I daresay it would have no virtue to speak of; but 
worn by a baby born on All Saints' Day! it must be a potent charm 
against the devil and all his works one would think, for it is a per- 
fectly authentic memorial of the early Christians. 

I hope you didn't go and drop the ' Jane ' after all ! Bless you 
and it. Affectionately yours, 

Jane Baillle Welsh Carlyle. 

LETTERS 279-282. 
Four Short Letters. 

About the beginning of January (1864) there were thought to be 
perceptible some faint symptoms of improvement or abatement; 
which she herself never durst believe in ; and indeed to us eager 
on-lookers they were faint and uncertain — nothing of real hope, 
except in getting to St. Leonards so soon as the season would 
permit. 

Early in March, weather mild though dim and wettish, this sad 
transit was accomplished by railway ; I escorting, and visiting at 
every stage ; Maggie Welsh and our poor patient in what they called 
a ' sick carriage,' which indeed took her up at this door, and after 

delays and haggles at St. Leonards, put her down at Dr. B^ 's; 

but was found otherwise inferior to the common arrangement for a 
sick person (two window-seats, with board aud cushion put between), 
though about five or six times dearer, and was never employed 
again. She was carried downstairs here in the bed of this dreary 
vehicle (which I saw well would remind her, as it did, of a hearse, 
with its window for letting in the coffin); she herself, weak but 
clear, directed the men. So pathetic a face as then glided past me 
at this lower door I never saw nor shall see! And the journey — and 
the arrival. But of all this, which passed without accident, and 
which remains to myself unforgetable enough, and sad as the realms 
of Hades, I undertook to say nothing. 

Her reception was of the very kindest; her adjustment, with 
Maggie aud one of our maids (in fine, airy, quiet rooms, in the big 
house, with the loving aud skilful hosts), I saw in a few hours com- 
pleted to my satisfaction, far beyond expectation. She herself said 
little; but sat in her pure, simple dress, &c, looking, though sor- 
rowful, calm and thankful. At length I left the house (or indeed 
they almost pushed me out, ' not to miss the last train,' which I 
saved only by half a moment by hot speed and good luck), and got 
home in a more hopeful mood than I had come away. Solely, in 
my last cab (from Waterloo Station), I had stuck my cap (a fine 
black velvet thing of lier making) too hurriedly into my pocket, and 
it had hustled out, and in the darkness been left. Loss irrecovera- 
ble, not noticed till next morning, and which I still regret. ' Oh, 
nothing! ' said she, cheerily and yet mournfully, at our next meet- 
ing. 'I will make you a new cap when I am able to sew again.' 
But I think, in effect, she never sewed more. 

Maggie's daily bulletin was indistinct and ambiguous, but strove 
always to be favourable, or really was so. I sat busy here; gener- 
ally wrote to my poor darling some daily line; got from her now and 
then some word or two, but always on mere practical or household 
matters; seldom or never any confirmation of Maggie's reading of 



the omens. In the last week of March (as covenanted) I made my 
first visit (Friday till Monday, 1 think). Forster and Mrs. F. went 

with me, but did not see her. 1 stayed at Dr. B 's, they at a 

hotel, where was dining, &c. Whether thiswas my first visit to her 
there I strive to recollect distinctly, but cauuot. I seem to have 
even seen but little of her, aud certainly learned nothing intimate; 
as if she rather avoided much communication with me, unwilling to 
rob me of the doctor's confident prognostications, and much unable 
to confirm them. Her mood of fixed, quiet sorrow, with no hope in 
it but of enduring well, was painfully visible. I had just got rid of 
my vol. v., deeply disappointed latterly on finding that there must 
be a sixth. Hades was not more lugubrious thau that book too now 
was to me; aud yet there was something in it of sacred, of Orpheus- 
like (though I did not think of ' Orpheus ' at all, nor name my dar- 
ling an ' Eurydice ' !) and the stern course was to continue — what 
else? 

In the end of April brother John came to me. Before this it had 

been decided (since the B 's, who at first pretended that they 

would, now evidently would not, accept remuneration from us) that 
a small furnished house should be rented, and a shift made thither; 
which was done aud over about the time John came. I was to re- 
move thither with my work (so soon as liftable). He by himself 
made a preliminary visit thither; then perhaps another with me; 
and at his return I could notice (though he said nothing) that he 
meant to try staying with us there; which he did, and surely was of 
use to me there. 

Early in May this (Chelsea) house was left to Larkin's care (who 
at last came into it, letting his own); and all of us had reassembled 
in the poor new hospice (' 117 Marina, St. Leonards '), studious to 
try our best and utmost there. Maggie Welsh had to return to 
Liverpool (to nurse a poor little child-nephew who was dying). I 
did not find Maggie at St. Leonards; but the good Mary Craik 
(Professor's Mary, from Belfast), by my Jeannie's own suggestion, 
was written to, came directly, and did as well; perhaps more 
quietly, and thus better. 

In those seven or eight months of martyrdom (October 1863 — 
May 1864) there is naturally no record of the poor dear martyr's 
own discoverable; nothing but these small, most mournful notes 
written with the left hand, as if from the core of a broken heart, 
and worthy to survive as a voice de profundis. Maggie's part, 
which fills the last two pages, I omit. The address is gone, but 
still evident on inference. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

St. Leonards: Friday, April 8, 1864. 
Oh, my own darling! God have pity on usl Ever since the day 
after you left, whatever flattering accounts may have been sent 
you, the truth is I have been wretched — perfectly wretched day 
and night with that horrible malady. Dr. B. knows nothing about 
it more than the other doctors. So, God help me, for on earth is 
no help! 

Lady A. writes that Lord A. left you two thousand pounds — not 
in his will, to save duty — but to be given you as soon as possible. 
' The wished for come too late ! ' Money can do nothing for us 
now. 

Your loving and sore suffering 

Jane W. Carlyle. 

To-day I am a little less tortured — only a little; but a letter hav- 
ing been promised, I write. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

St. Leonards: April 19, 1864. 
It is no ' morbid despondency; ' it is a positive physical torment 
day and night — a burning, throbbing, maddening sensation in the 
most nervous part of me ever and ever. How be in good spirits or 
have any hope but to die! When I spoke of going home, it was to 
die there: here were the place for living, if one could! It was not 

my wish to leave here. It was the B s' own suggestion and 

wish that we should get a little house of our own. 

Oh, have pity oume! I am worse than ever I was in that terri- 
ble malady. I am, 

Yours as ever, 

Jane Carlyle. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea. 

St. Leonards-on-Sea: April 25. 1864. 
Oh. my husband! I am suffering torments! each day I suffer 
more horribly. Oh, I would like you beside me! I am terribly 
alone. But 1 ■ don't want to interrupt your work. I will wait till 
we are in our own hired house; aud then if am no better, you must 
come for a day. 

Your own wretched 

J. W. 0. 
To the Misses Welsh, Edinburgh. 

St. Leonards-on-Sea: 1 end of April. 1864. 
My own dear Aunts. — I take you to my heart and kiss you fondly 

i Probably still in Dr B 's house there. The next leltnr is expressly 

dated from the new hired house. Maggie still there, but just about to leave. 



134 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELls.I CARLYLE. 



one after another. God knows if we shall ever meet again; and 
His will be done! My doctor has hopes of my recovery, but I my- 
self am not hopeful ; my sufferings are terrible. 

The malady is in my womb — you may fancy. It is the conse- 
quence of that unlucky fall; no disease there, the doctors say, but 
some nervous derangement. Oh, what I have suffered, my aunts! 
what I may still have to suffer! Pray for me that I may be ena- 
bled to endure. 

Don't write to myself; reading letters excites me too much. 
And Maggie tells me all I should hear. I commit you to the Lord's 
keeping, whether I live or die. Ah, my aunts, I shall die; that is 
my belief! 

Jane Caklyle. 

LETTER 283. 

With a violent effort of packing and scheming (e.g., a bos of 
books with cross-bars in it, and shelves which were to be put in, 
and make the box a press. &c. &c), in all which Larkin and Mag- 
gie Welsh assisted diligently, I got down to Marina on one of the 
first days of May. Dreary and tragic was our actual situation 
there, but we strove to be of hope, and were all fixedly intent to do 
our best. The house was new, clean, light enough, and well aired ; 
otherwise paltry in the extreme — small, misbuilt every inch of it; a 
despicable, cockney, scamped edifice; a rickety bandbox rather 
than a house. But that did not much concern us. tenants only for 
a month or two — nay, withal there were traces that the usual in- 
habitants (two old ladies, probably very poor) had been cleanly, 
neat persons, sensible, as we, of the sins and miseries of their 
scamped, despicable dwelling-place, poor, good souls! 

In a small back closet, window opposite to door, and both al- 
ways open, I had soon got a table wedged to fixity, had set on end 
my book-box, changing it to a book-press, and adjusted myself to 
work, quite tolerably all along, though feeling as if tied up in a 
rack. One good bedroom there was in the top story, looking out 
over the sea — this was naturally hers; mine below and to rearward 
was the next best, and, by cunning adjustments curtains impro- 
vised out of rugs and ropes were made to exclude the light in some 
degree and admit freely the air currents. We made with our knives 
about a dozen little wedges as the first thing to keep the doors open 
or ajar at our will, their own being various in that respect! V.o put 
up with the house was a right easy matter, almost a solacement, in 
sight of the deep misery of its poor mistress, spite of all her striv- 
ing. 

The first day she was dressed waiting my arrival, and came pain- 
fully resolute down to dinner with us, but could hardly sit it out; 
and never could attempt again. With intellect clear and even in- 
ventive, her whole being was evidently plunged in continual woe, 
pain as if unbearable, and no hope left; in spite of our encourage- 
ments no steady hope at all. On the earth I have never seen so 
touching a sight! She drove out at lowest three or four times a 
day — ultimately long drives (which John took charge of to Battle, 
to Bexhill regions seeking new lodgings — alas, in vain!). Her last 
daily drive from four to half-past rive was always with me, my 
day's work now done. She was evidently thankful, but spoke 
hardly at all; or, if she did for my sake, on some indifferent mat- 
ter, naming to me some street oddity, locality, or the like; those 
poor efforts now in my memory are the saddest of all, beautiful to 
me, and sad and pathetic to me beyond all the rest. On setting her 
down at home I directly stepped across to the livery stable, and 
mounted for a rapid obligate ride of three hours: rides unlike any 
I have ever had in the world; more gloomy and mournful even 
than the London ones, though by no means so abominable even, 
one's company here being mainly God's sky and earth, notcockney- 
dom with its slums, enchanted aperies and infernalries. I rode far 
and wide, saw strange old villages (a pair of storks in one) saw 
Battle by many routes (and even began to understand the Harold- 
William duel there. Strange that no English soldier, scholar, or 
mortal ever yet tried to do it). Battle, town and monastery, in the 
calm or in the windy summer gloaming, was a favourite sight of 
mine; only the roads were in parts distressing (new cuts, new cock- 
ney scamped edifices, and railways and much dust). Crowhirst 
and its yew, that has seen (probably) the days of Julius Cassar as 
well as William the Conqueror's, and ours. But that is not my 
topic. In the green old lanes with their quaint old cottages, good 
old cottagers, valiant, frugal, patient, I could have wept. In the 
disastrous, dust-covered, cockneyfying parts my own feeling had 
something of rage in it, rage, and disgust. It was usually after 
nightfall when I got home. Tea was waiting for me; and silently 
my Jeannie (as I at length observed) to preside over it (ah, me! ah, 
me!), directly after which she went up to bed. Hastings, St. 
Leonards, Battle, Rye, Winchelsea, Beachy Head, intrinsically all 
a beautiful region (when not cockneyfied, and turned to cheap and 
nasty chaos and the mortar tubs), and yet in the world is no place 
I should so much shudder to se£ again. 

We have various visitors — Forster, Twisleton, Woolner — and 
none of these could she see; not even Miss Bromley, who came twice 
for a day or more, but in vain — except the last time, just one hur- 
ried glimpse. Nothing could so indicate to what a depth of despair 
the ever gnawing pain and boundless misery had suuk this once 
brightest and openest of human souls. The B s continued 



with unwearied kindness doing, and hoping, and endeavouring; 
but that also, even on the Doctor's part much more on her own, 
began to seem futile, unsuccessful; good old Barnes came once 
(fast falling into imbecility and finis, poor man), said: 'Hah! 
intrinsically just the same; however, the disease will bum itself 
out!' 

About the middle of June (lease was to end with that month, and 
her own house, especially her own room there, had grown horrible 
to her thoughts) she moved that we should engage the house till end 
of July; which was done. But. alas! before June ended things had 
grown still more intolerable; sleep more and more impossible, and 
she wished to be off from the Jul}' bargain — would the people have 
consented? (which they would not) — so that the question what to 
do became darker and darker. ' If your room at Chelsea had a new 
paper? ' somebody suggested; and Miss Bromley h,ad undertaken to 
get it done. This of the ' new paper ' went into my heart as nothing 
else had done, ' so small, so helpless, faint;' and to the present hour 
it could almost make me weep! It was done, however, by-and-by; 
and under changed omens. Thank God. 

But in the meanwhile, hour by hour, things were growing more 
intolerable. Twelve successive nights of burning summer, totally 
without Sleep; morning after the eleventh of them she announced 
a fixed resolution of her own, and the next morning executed it. 
Set off by express train, with John for escort, to London; would 
try Mrs. Forster's instead of her own horrible room; but would go 
(we could all see) or else die. Miss Bromley, who had again come, 
she consented to see in passing into the train; one moment only, a 
squeeze of the hand, and adieu. With a stately, almost proud step, 
my poor martyred darling took her place, Johu opposite her, and 
shot away. 

At the Forsters' she had some disturbed sleep, not much; and 
next morning ordered John to make ready for the evening train to 
Dumfries (to sister Mary's, at the Gill), and rushed along all night, 
330 miles at once — a truly heroic remedy of nature's own prescrib- 
ing, which did by quick steps and struggles bring relief. 

The Gill, sister Mary's poor but ever kind and generous human 
habitation, isa small farmhouse, seven miles beyond Annan, twenty- 
seven beyond Carlisle, eight or ten miles short of Dumfries, and, 
therefore, twenty-two or twenty-four short of Thornhill, through 
both of which the S. W. Railway passes. Scotsbrig lies some ten 
miles northward of the Gill (road at right angles to the Carlisle and 
Dumfries Railway): pnsses by Hoddam Hill, even as of old — and 
at Ecclefechan, two miles from Scotsbrig, crosses the Carlisle, 
Moffat or Calendonian Railway — enough for the topography of 
these tragic things. — T. C. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., 117 Marina, St. Lconards-on-Sea. 

The Gill: July 15, 1861. 

Oh, my dear, I am quite as amazed as you to find myself here, so 
promiscuous! I had given up all idea of Scotland when I left St. 
Leonards; felt neither strength nor courage for it; but postponed 
projects till I saw what lay for me at Palace-Gate House. I found 
there much kindness, and much state, and a firm expectation that I 
was merely passing through! And if they had wanted me ever so 
much to stay, there was not a bed in the house fit to be slept jn 
from the noise point of view! Cheyne Row full of Larkins; and 
my old room in the same state: horrible was the idea to me! The 
Blunts perhaps out of town; London very hot! I did sleep some 
human sleep in my luxurious bedroom, all crashing with wheels; 
but only the having had no sleep the night before made me so clever! 
I could' not have slept a second night. No, there was nothing to be 
done but what I did — turn that second night to use, travel through 
it, and not try for any sleep until there was some chance of getting 
it; that night on the' road was nothing like so wretched as those 
nights at Marina. I drank four glasses of champagne in the night! 
and took a good breakfast at Carlisle. John was dreadfully ill- 
tempered: we quarrelled incessantly, but he had the grace to be 
ashamed of himself after, and apologise. On the whole, it was a 
birthday of good omen. My horrible ailment kept off as by en- 
chantment. 

Mary is all that one could wish as hostess, nurse, and sister. She 
has had something of the sort herself, and her sympathy is intelli- 
gent. 

I am gone in for milk diet: took porridge and buttermilk in 
quantity last night, and slept, with few awakenings, all night; had 
a tumbler of new milk at eight, and got up to breakfast at nine. I 
am very shaky, you will see, but, oh, so thankful for my sleep and 
ease— would i't but last! Johu went to Dumfries yesterday after- 
noon; and all who had been about me being gone. I felt like a child 
set down out of arms, but am contriving to totter pretty well so far. 
John was to be here to-day some time. 

I am very sorry for you with those idiot servants. Mary ' proved 
herself of no earthly use to me, besides being sulky and conceited. 
Mary Craik is your only present stay; kiss her for me, dear, kind, 
sood girl. I will write to her next. I am so sorry at having had 
to leave her in such a mess. 



' Servant now (privately) in a bad way, as turned out ! 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



*35 



James Austin had already got a nice carriage for Mary to drive 
me about in. Oh, they are so kind, and so polite! 

Your own 

J. W. C. 
Extracts from Letters. 

Mrs. Carlyle's letters, during the remainder of the summer, are 
a sad record of perpetually recurring suffering. The carriage broke 
-down in her second drive with her sister-in-law, aud she was vio- 
lently shaken. Mrs. Austiu gave her all the care that love had to 
bestow; but iu a farmhouse there was not 'he accommodation 
which her condiiion required, and her friend Mrs. Russell carried 
her off to Holm Hill, where she would be under Dr. Russell's im- 
mediate charge. A series of short extracts from the letters to her 
husband will convey a sufficient picture of her condition iu body 
and mind. The most touching feature in them is the affection 
with which she now clung to him. Carlyle's anxiety, at last awake, 
had convinced her that his strange humours had not risen from 
real indifference. John Carlyle, the doctor, with whom she had 
travelled, had been rough aud unfeeling. — J. A. F. 

To T. Carlyle. 

Holm Hill, July 23, 1864. — I have arrived safe. They met me at 
the station, and are kind as so many are. John offered to accom- 
pany here, but I declined. Fancy him telling me in my agony 
yesterday that if I had ever done anything in my life this would 
not have been; that no poor woman with work to mind had ever 
such an ailment as this of mine since the world began! ' Oh, my 
dear, I think how near my mother I am! How still I should be 
laid besideier. 9 But I wish to live for you, if only I could live 
out of torment. 

July 25. — Mary Craik will go to-day, and you will be alone with 
town maids; and if I were there I could but add to your troubles. 
We are sorely tried, and God alone knows what the end will be. 
It is no wonder if my stock of hope aud courage is quite worn out. 

July 27. — I could not write yesterday; I was too ill and desper- 
.ate. Again, without assignable cause, I had got no wink of sleep. 
I am terribly weak. If I had not such kind people beside me I 
should be wretched indeed. I do not feel so agitated by the sights 
about here as I used to do. I seem already to belong to the 
passed-away as much as to the present; nay, more. 

God bless you on your solitary way. 

July 28. — When will I be back? Ah, my God! when? for it is 
no good going back to be a trouble to you aud a torment to myself. 
I must not look forward, but try to bear my life from day to day, 
thankful that for the present I am so well cared for. 

August 2. — I am cared for here as I have never been since I lust 
my mother's nursing; and everything is good for me: the quiet 
airy bedroom, the new milk, the beautiful drives; and when all 
this fails to bring me human sleep or endurable nervousness, can 
you wonder that I am in the lowest spirits about myself? So long 
as I had a noisy bedroom or food miscooked even, I had something 
to attribute my sleeplessness to ; now I can only lay it to my dis- 
eased nerves, aud at my age such illness does not right itself. 

August 5. — Except for this wakefulness I am better than when I 
left Marina, and it is unaccountable that I should be so well in 
spite of getting less sleep than I ever heard of anyone, out of a 
medical book, getting and living with. I was weighed yesterday, 
and found a gain of five pounds since April. If sleep would come 
I think I should recover — the first time I have had this hope seri- 
ously ; but if it won't come I must break down sooner or later, 
being no Dutchman nor Jeffrey; 3 and I fear not for my life, but 
for my reason. It is almost sinfully ungrateful, when God has 
borue me through such prolonged agonies with my senses intact, 
to have so little confidence in the future; but courage aud hope 
have been ground out of me. Submission! Acknowledgment 
that my sufferings have been no greater than I deserved is just the 
most that I am up to. 

Oh, my dear, I am very weary! My agony has lasted longl I 
am tempted to take a long cry over myself — and no good will come 
of that. 

August 22. — I have no wholly sleepless nights to report now. I 
don't sleep well, by any means; but to sleep at all is such an im- 
provement. I continue to gain flesh. A declares that in the 

last ten days 1 have gained four pounds! But that must be non- 
sense. 

August 26. — Walking is hardly possible for me at present, the 
change of the weather having produced rheumatic pains and stiff- 
ness in my knees. I did the best I could for myself in buying a 
good supply of woollen uuder-garments — not new dresses, not a 
single new dress, nor anything for the outside. The mercury of 
my mental thermometer has not risen to care for appearances, only 
to the hope of living long enough to need new flannels. I did once 
turn over the idea of a new bonnet, the one I have having lasted 
me three years! But I sent it to the daughter of your old admirer, 



' Poor John ! well-intending, but with hand unconsciously rough, even cruel, 
as in this last instance, which she never could forget again. '* 

2 Oh, Heaven 1 

3 In Cabanis, case of a Dutch gentleman who lived twenty years without 
sleep 1 which I often remembered for my own sake and hers. Jeffrey is Lord 
Jeffrey, sad trait of insomnia reported by himself. 



Shankland the tailor, and she took out the ' clures ' and put in a 
clean cap for tenpence ! 

August 29. — The thought of how I am ever to make that long 
journey back which I made here in the strength of desperation, 
troubles me night and day; and what is to become of me when I 
am back, with my warm milk and my nursing and my doctoring 
taken away? Oh, I am frightened — frightened! a perfect coward 
am I become — I, who was surely once brave ! But I cannot, must 
not, stay on here through the winter. Besides the unreasonable- 
ness of inflicting such a burden on others, it would be too cold and 
damp for me here in the valley of the Nith. So, dear, though I 
would fain spare you this and all troubles with me, I must go to 
the subject of the papering [of her room in Cheyne Row], and you 
must forgive what may strike you as weakly fanciful in my desire 
to have ' a new colour about me.' You must consider that I was 
carried out of those rooms to be shoved into a sort of hearse, and 
(to my own feelings) buried out of that house for ever; and that I 
have not had time yet, nor got strength enough yet, to shake off 
the associations that make those rooms terrible for me. To give 
them somewhat of a different appearance is the most soothing 
thing that can be done for me. 1 

August SO. — No sleep at all last night; had no chance of sleep, 
for the neuralgic pains piercing me from shoulder to breast like a 
sword. I am profoundly disheartened. Every way I turn it looks 
dark, dark to me. I had dared to hope, to look forward to some 
years of health — no worse, at least, than I had before. I cannot 
write cheerfully. I am not cheerful. 

September 6. — Oh, that it was as easy to put tormenting thoughts 
out of one's own head as it is for others to bid one do that! I wish 
to heaven you were delivered from those paper-hangers. I did not 
think it would have been so long in the wind. I, the unlucky 

cause, am quite as sorry for the botheration to you as expresses 

herself, though I have more appreciation of the terrible half-insane 
sensitiveness which drove me on to bothering you, Oh, if God 
would only lift my trouble off me so far that I could bear it all in 
silence, and not add to the troubles of others 1 

September!. — I cannot write. I have passed a terrible night. 
Sleeplessness and restlessness and the old pain (worse than it has 
ever been since I came here); and, in addition to all that, an inward 
blackness of darkness. Am I going to have another winter like 
the last? I cannot live through another such time: my reason, at 
least, cannot live through it. Oh, God bless you and help me! 

September 9. — I am very stupid and low. God can raise me up 
again; but will He? Oh, I am weary, weary! My dear, when I 
have been giving directions about the house then a feeling like a 
great black wave will roll over my breast, and I say to myself, 
whatever pains be taken to gratify me, shall I ever more have i. 
day of ease, of painlessness, or a night of sweet rest, in that house, or 
in any house but the dark narrow one where I shall arrive at last. 

September 16. — Oh, if there was any sleep to be got in that bed 
wherever it stands! [alluding to a change in the position of her bed 
at Chelsea.] But it looks to my excited imagination, that bed I 
was born in, like a sort of instrument of red-hot torture; after all 
those nights that I lay meditating on self-destruction as my only 
escape from insanity. Oh, the terriblest part of my suffering has 
not been what was seen, has not been what could be put into 
human language! 

September 26, 1864. — Oh, my dear! I thank God I got some little 
sleep last night! for I had been going from bad to worse, till I had 
reached a point that seemed to take me back to the time just before 
I left Marina, and to give to that time additional poignancy. I 
had tlra quite recent remembrance of some weeks of such compara- 
tive ease and well-ness! Oh, this relapse is a severe disappoint- 
ment to me, and God knows, not altogether a selfish disappoint- 
ment! I had looked forward to going back to you so much 
improved, as to be, if not of any use and comfort to you, at least 
no trouble to you, and no burden on your spirits!, 8 And now God 
knows how it will be! Sometimes I feel a deadly assurance that I 
am progressing towards just such another winter as the last! only 
what little courage aud hope supported me in the beginning, worn 
out now, and ground into dust, under long fiery suffering! 

Dr. Russell says, as Dr. B said, that the special misery will 

certainly wear itself out in time; if I can only eat and keep up 
my strength, that it may not wear out me! But how keep up my 
strength without sleep? 

Oh dear! you cannot help me, though you would! Nobody can 
help me! Only God: and can I wonder if God take no heed of 
me when I have all my life taken so little heed of Him? 

John is coming to-day to settle about the journey. When I 
spoke so bravely about going alone. I was much better than I am 
at present. I am up to nothing of the sort now, and must be 
thankful for his escort, the besf that offers. He says Saturday 
is the best day. But I don't incline to arriving on a Sunday 
morning, so I shall vote for Friday night. But you will hear 
from me again and again before then. 

Your ever affectionate 

J. W. Carlyle. 

1 Poor, forlorn darling! All this was managed to her mind— all this yet 
stands mournfully here, and shall stand. 

2 Oh, my poor martyr darling I 



136 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



LETTER 284. 
Thomas Carlyle, Chelsea, London. 

Holm Hill: Wednesday, Sept. 28, 18&4. 

Again a night absolutely sleepless, except for a little dozing be- 
tween six and seven. There were no shooting pains to keep me 
awake last night, although I felt terribly chill, in spite of a heap of 
blankets that kept me in a sweat; but it was a cold sweat. I am 
very wretched to-day. Dr. Russell handed me the other night a 
medical book he was reading, open at, the chapter on ' Neuralgia ' 
that I might read, for my practical information, a list of 'counter- 
irritants.' 

I read a sentence or two more than was meant, ending with 'this 
lady was bent on self-destruction.' You may think it a strange 
comfort, but it was a sort of comfort to me to find that my dread- 
ful wretchedness was a not uncommon feature of my disease, and 
not merely an expression of individual cowardice. 

Another strange comfort I take to myself under the present pres- 
sure of horrible nights. If I had continued up till now to feel as 
much better as I did in the first weeks of my stay here, I should 
have dreaded the return to London as a sort of suicide. Now I 
again want a change — even that change! There lies a possibility, 
at least, of benefit in it; which I could not have admitted to myself 
had all gone on here as in the beginning. 

I am very sorry for Lady Ashburton, am afraid her health is 
irretrievably ruined. Pray do write her a few lines. 1 

It has been a chill mist, from the water all the morning, but the 
sun is trying to break through. 

God send me safe back to you, such as I am. 

Ever yours, 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 285. 
Tliomas Carlyle, Chelsea, London. 

Holm Hill : Thursday, Sept. 29, 1864. 

This, then, is to be my last letter from here. AVhere will the 
next letter be from, or will there be a next? Blind moles! With 
our pride of insight too! we can't tell even that much beforehand. 

If I had trusted my power of divination yesterday I should have 
renounced all hope of seeing 3'ou this week. I had to go to bed at 
five in the afternoon, in a sort of nervous fever from want of sleep. 
The irritation, too, unbearable! That clammy, deathly sweat, in 
which I had passed the previous night, as if I had been dipped in 
ice-water, then placed under a crushing weight of frozen blankets, 
seemed to have taken all warm life out of me. So I gave up and 

went to bed. At night I took one of Dr. B 's blue pills (the 

larger dose had ceased to be beneficial) and about twelve I fell 
asleep, thank God! and went on sleeping and waking till half-past 
seven. It was healing sleep, besides being a good deal of it. My 
first reflection this morning was: And there are beggars — nay, 
there are blackguards, or both in one— who get every night of 
their lives far better sleep than even this, which is such an un- 
speakable mercy to me. Ach! it is no discovery that much in this 
world quite surpasses one's human comprehension. 

I have been thrown out of my reckoning. I had calculated that 
on the principle of a bad night, and a less bad. the less bad would 
fall to-night; and that. I should have some sleep in me to start with. 
But two waking nights coming together changes the order; and to- 
night, in the course of nature (second nature), no rest is to be ex- 
pected. 

Tell Mary I now take coffee to breakfast (John takes tea); and 
to have a little cream in the house that one may fall soft. 

And now good-bye till we meet. Oh, that I had been a day and 
night (and the night a good one) in the house! No mortal can 
imagine the thoughts of my heart in returning there, where I was 
buried from! and my life still unrenewed! only the hope, often 
overcast, that it is in the way of being renewed. 

Your ever affectionate 

Jane Carlyle. 

My little maid asked me this morning, when about to draw on my 
stockings: ' What d'ye think? wouldn't it be a good thing to hae 
the taes (toes) clippet again, afore ye gang away? ' I shall so miss 
that kind, thoughtful girl ! 

LETTER 286. 

Saturday, October 1, 1864, a mild, clear (not sunny) day. John 
brought her home to me again to this door — by far the gladdest 
sight I shall ever see there, if gladness were the name of any sight 
now in store for me. A faint, kind, timid smile was on her face, 
as if afraid to believe fully; but the despair had vanished from her 
looks altogether, and she was brought back to me, my own again 
as before. 

During all this black interval I had been continuing my ' coma- 
tose flight' without intermission, and was not yet by four months 
got to land. To extraneous events my attention was momentary, 
if not extinct altogether; for months and years I had not written 
the smallest letter or note except on absolute compulsion. But 



1 Is again in vigorous health. 



here was an event extraneous to ' Frederick,' which could not be 
extraneous to 'Frederick's' biographer, never so worn out and 
crushed into stupefaction. This again woke me into life and hope, 
into vivid and grateful recognition, and was again a light, or the 
sure promise of a light from above on my nigh desperate course. 
(Oh, what miserable inapplicable phrasing is this! or why speak of 
myself at all?) 

My poor martyred darling continued to prosper here beyond my 
hopes — far beyond her own; and in spite of utter weakness (which 
I never rightly saw) and of many fits of trouble, her life to the very 
end continued beautiful and hopeful to both of us — to me more 
beautiful than I had ever seen it in her best days. Strange and 
precious to look back upon, those last eighteen months, as of a 
second youth (almost a second childhood with the wisdom and 
graces of old age), which by Heaven's great mercy were conceded 
her and me. In essentials never had she been so beautiful to me; 
never in my time been so happy. But I am unfit to speak of these 
things, to-day most unfit (August 12. 1S69), and will leave the little 
series of letters (which were revised several days ago) to tell their 
own beautiful and tragical story. 

Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill, Thornhill, Dumfriesshire. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Monday, Oct. 3, 1864. 

Oh, my darling! my darling! God forever bless you — you and 
dear Dr. Russell, for your goodness to me, your patience with me, 
and all the good you have done me! I am better aware now 
how much I have gained than I was before this journey; how much 
stronger I am, both body and mind, than I was on my journey to 
Scotland. I felt no fatigue on the journey down, but I made up 
for it in nervous excitement! On the journey up, all my nervous- 
ness was over when I had parted with you two. Even when ar- 
rived at my own door (which I had always looked forward to as a 
most terrible moment, remembering the hearse-like fashion in which 
I was carried away from it) I could possess my soul in quiet, and 
meet the excited people who rushed out to me, as gladly as if I had 
been returned from any ordinary pleasure excursion! 

Very excited people they were. Dr. C. had stupidly told his ' 
brother he might look for us about ten, and, as we did not arrive 
till half after eleven, Mr. C. had settled it in his own mind that I 
had been taken ill somewhere on the road, and was momentarily 
expecting a telegram to say I was dead. So he rushed out in his 
dressing-gown, and kissed me, and wept over me as I was in the 
act of getting down out of the cab (much to the edification of the 
neighbours at their windows, I have no doubt); and then the maids 
appeared behind him. looking timidly, with flushed faces and tears 
in their eyes; and the little one (the cook) threw her arms round 
my neck and fell to kissing me in the open street; and the big one 
(the housemaid) I had to kiss, that she might not be made jealous 
the first thing. 

They were all astonished at the improvement in my appearance. 
Mr. C. has said again and again that he would not have believed 
anyone who had sworn it to him that I should return so changed 
for the better. Breakfast was presented to me. but though I had 
still Holm Hill things to eat, I had not my Holm Hill appetite to 
eat them with. All Saturday there was nothing I cared to swallow 
but champagne (Lady Ashburton had sent me two dozen, first-rate, 

in the winter); so I took the B blue pill that first night, as Dr. 

Russell had advised. And, oh, such a heavenly sleep I had ! awoke 
only twice the whole night! It is worth while passing a whole 
night on the railway to get such blessed sleep the night after. Last 
night, again, I slept; not so well as the first night, of course, but 
wonderfully well for me; and this morning my breakfast was not 
contemptible. But it is a great hardship to have lost my warm 
milk in the morning. I thought by paying an exorbitant price it 
might have been obtained; but no; the stuff offered me yesterday 
at eight o'clock it was impossible to swallow. And my poor ' inte- 
rior,' perfectly bewildered by all the sudden changes put on them, 
don't seem to have any clear ideas left; so I am driven back into 
the valley of the shadow of pills! 

I had a two-hours' drive yesterday in Battersea Park and Clapham 
Common. When one hasn't the beauties of nature, one must con- 
tent one's self with the beauties of art. To-day my drive must be 
townward; so many things wanted at the shops! There is hardly 
a kitchen utensil left unbroken; all broken by ' I can't imagine who 
did it! ' Still, it might have been worse; there seems to have been 
no serious mischief done. 

Wasn't it curious to have your eternal 'Simpson ' given me for 
fellow-traveller? 

Oh, my darling, if I might continue just as well as I am now! 
But that' is not to be hoped. Anyhow, I shall always feel as if I 
owed my life chiefly to your husband and you, who procured me 
such rest as I could have had nowhere else in the world. 

Your own 

Jane W. C. 
LETTER 287. 
Mrs. Russell, Holm mil, Thornhill, Dumfriesshire. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Thursday, Oct. 6, 1864. 

Dearest,— At Holm Hill, at this hour, I should have just drunk 
my glass of wine, and been sitting down at the dining-room table 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



137 



tolwrite the daily letter to Mr. C. The likest tiling I can do here is 
tolsit down at the drawing-room table and write to you. I feel the 
saine sort of responsibility for myself to you, as to him, and to you 
on\y, of all people alive! and feel, too, the same certainty of being 
reall with anxious interest. Oh, my dear Mary, it is an unspeak- 
ably blessing to have such a friend as you are to me! Often, 
wh<)n I have felt unusually free from my misery of late, it has 
'seethed to me that I could not be grateful enough to God for the 
mercy; unless He inspired me with a spiritual gratitude, far above 
the iiere tepid human gratitude I offered Him! And just so with 
you] I feel as if I needed God's help to make me humanly capable 
of the 'sort of sacred thankfulness I ought to feel for such a friend 
as yourself ! I wanted to say to you aud your dear husband some- 
thing like this when I came away, but words choked themselves in 
my tjiroat at parting. 

I have been wonderfully well since I came home; have slept 
pretty well — not as on the first night (that was sleep for only the 
angels, and for the mortal who had travelled from three to four 
hundred miles through the night!), but quite tolerably for me, 
every night till the last. The last was very bad. But I had the 
comfort of being able to blame something for it, and that was my 
own imprudence. 

I wearied myself putting pictures to rights, which were hung up 
all crooked (Dr. Russell will sympathise with me), and then wor- 
ried myself with the shortcomings of my large beautiful house- 
maid, who justifies (aud more) all Mr. C.'s tirades against her! 
This creature, with her goosishness, and her self-conceit, is unen- 
durable after little Mary. 

Only think! I get ruy new milk again, at eight, as usual! Our 
Rector's wife keeps a cow for her children, and I have a key to 
her grounds; and, going through that way, it is not three minutes' 
walk for my cook to take a warm tumbler aud fetch it back full 
of real milk, milked into it there and then. I get plenty of cream, 
quite good, paying for it exorbitantly; but no matter, so that I 
get it. My eight stones eleven-and-a-half would soon have had a 
hole made into it without the milk and cream. 

I go out iu a nice brougham, with a safe swift horse, whom I 
know, every day from one till three. And, when I come in, I 
have added your little tumbler full of excellent champagne to the' 
already liberal allowance of drink! ! ! It is to make up for the 
difference iu the purity of the air! ! 

The letters Dr. Russell forwarded were from Dr. B and 

Maria (the maid). I send them back, the doctor's for Dr. Russell, 
and Maria's for you, to amuse you with the girl's presumption! 
My 'eternal good.' Help us! if Maria is to preach to mel Here 
is a letter from Grace Welsh, too. Everybody ' praying for me. ' 
Burn them all — I mean the letters — when you have done with 
them. 
God bless my darling. 

Jane W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 288. 

' Curiosities aud niceties of a civilised house.' — Old phrase of my 
father's. 

'Elise's.' — Madame Elise, she often told me, was an artist and 
woman of genius in her profession; and of late years there had 
sprung up a mutual recognition, which was often pleasant to my 
dear one. — T. C. 

Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill, Thornhill. Dumfriesshire. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Monday, Oct. 10, 1864. 
Dearest, — Nature prompts me to begin the week with writing to 
you, though I have such a pressure of work ahead as I can't see 
daylight through, with no help in putting to rights; for my large, 
beautiful housemaid is like a cow in a flower-garden amongst the 
'curiosities and niceties' of a civilised house! Oh, thauk God, for 
the precious layer of impassivity which that stone weight of flesh 
has put over my nerves! I am not like the same woman who 
trembled from head to foot, and panted like a duck in a thunder- 
storm, at St. Leonards whenever a human face showed itself from 
without, or anything worried from within. Indeed, my nerves 
are stronger than they have beeu for years. Just for instance, yes- 
terday, what I went through without having the irritation in- 
creased, or my sleep worsened! As soon as I was in the drawing- 
room George Cooke came — the same who wrote to tell you of my 
accident. Now this George Cooke is a man between thirty and 
forty; tall, strong, silent, sincere; has been a sailor, a soldier, a 
New Zealand settler, a ' man about town,' and a stockbroker! The 
last man on earth one would have expected to make one ' a scene.' 
But lo! what happened? I stood up to welcome him, and he took 
me in his arms, and kissed me two or three times, and then he 
sank into a chair and — burst into tears! and sobbed and cried for 
a minute or two like any schoolboy. Mercifully I was not in- 
fected by his agitation ; but it was I who spoke calmly, and 
brought him out of it! He accompanied me in my drive after, 
aud when I had come home, aud was going to have my dinner, a 
carriage drove up. Being nothiug like so polite and self-sacrificing 
as you, I told Helen to say I was tired, and dining, and would see 
no one. She returned with a card. ' Please, ma'am, the gentle- 
man says he thinks you will see him.' The name on the card was 



Lord Houghton, a very old friend whom you may have heard me 
speak of as Richard Milnes. 'Oh, yes! he might come up.' No- 
body could have predicted sentiment out of Lord Houghton! but, 
good gracious! it was the same thing over again. He clasped me 
in his arms, and kissed me, and dropped on a chair — not crying, 
but quite pale, and gasping, without being able to say a word. 

When the emotional stage was over, and we were talking of my 
saty at Holm Hill, I mentioned the horrid thing that befell just 

when I was leaving — the death of Mrs. . ' Where? ' said Lord 

Houghton. ' At Hall.' He sprang to his feet as if shot, and 

repeated. 'Dead? dead? dead?' till I was quite frightened. 'Oh, 
did you know her?' I asked. 'I am sorry to have shocked you.' 
' Know her? I have known her intimately since she was a little 
girl ! I was to have gone to visit her this month.' 

He told me [she had had [a romantic history. She was grand- 
daughter to a brother of the who was Secretary of State at 

Naples. The family got reduced, but struggled bravely to keep 
up their rank in Naples; chiefly helped by this girl who was 'most 
brave and generous.' They afterwards came to England, and 
here, too, it was a struggle. ' The girl ' went on a visit, and at her 
friend's house Mr. saw her, fell in love with her, and pro- 
posed to her. ' The girl ' shuddered at him. He was a coarse, un- 
cultivated man, perfectly unlike her, and she would not hear of 
such a marriage; but the father and mother gathered round her, 
and implored, and reasoned, and impressed on her that with so 
rich a husband she would be able to lift them out of all their diffi- 
culties, and make their old age comfortable and happy, till at 
leugth she gave iu. Having once married the man, Lord H. said, 
she made him a good wife and he was a good husband. 

After these two enthusiastic meetings, I was sure I should get 
no sleep. But I slept much as usual during the last week; not at 
all as I slept the first night, but better than my fraction of sleep 
during the last weeks with you. 

My bedroom is extremely quiet ; my comfort well attended to 
by — myself. I miss little Mary for more things than ' the clipping 
o' thetaes,' bless her! I was at Elise's, to get the velvet bonnet 
she made me last year, stripped of its finery. White lace and red 
roses don't become a woman who has been looking both death and 
insanity in the face for a year. I told her (Elise) that I had seen 

two of her bonnets ou a Mrs. H in Scotland. ' Oh, yes, she 

has every article she wears from here!' 'You made her court 
dress, didn't you, that was noticed in the " Morning Post "? ' 'Yes, 
yes, I dressed the whole three. Mrs. H's dress cost three hundred 
pounds! but she doesn't mind cost.' 

Dear love to the Doctor. 

Your affectionate 

J. Carltle. 

LETTER 289. 
John Forster, Esq., Palace- Gate House, Kensington. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: October 1854. 

Dearest Mr. Forster, — Now that Mr. C. has me here before his 
eyes, in an upright posture, he considers it not only my business, 
but my wifely duty to answer all inquiries about me, myself. I 
have then the melancholy pleasure of informing you and dear 
' Small Individual ' that I am returned to this foggy scene of things 
with no intentions of further travels for the present. I not only 
' stood ' the long night journey (they always bid me travel by night) 
very well, but, as on the journey down, it procured me one night 
of heavenly sleep; and, as nervous illness is more benefited by 
change than anything else, I felt, for the first week after my return, 
even better than in the first weeks of my stay in Scotland. The 
almost, miraculous improvement is now wearing off. I have again 
miserable nights, and plenty of pain intermittently. Still I am a 
stone heavier (!), and, in every way, an improved woman from what 
I was when you did not see me at Marina. But you will soon be 
here to take a look at me, and judge for yourself. I hope you 
won't be so shocked as my carpenter, who told me yesterday: 'I 
am very sorry indeed, ma'am, to see you fallen so suddenly into in- 
firmity ! There is a sad change since I saw you last! ' And me a 
stone heavier! 

Best love to her. 

Yours ever affectionately, 

Jane Carltle. 

LETTER 290. 
To Mrs. Austin, The Gill, Annan. 

5 Cheyne Row: Tuesday, Oct. 18, 1864. 
Oh, little woman! you will come to our aid, if possible; but if 
impossible, what on earth are we to do for eggs? At this present 
Mr. O is breakfasting on shop-eggs, and doesn't know it ; and I am 
every morning expecting to hear in my bed an explosion over some 
one too far gone for his making himself an allusion about it. All 
the people who kept fowls round about have, the maids say, dur- 
ing my absence ceased to keep them, and the two eggs from Addis- 
combe three times a week are not enough for us both; I, ' as one 
solitary individual,' needing three in the day — one for breakfast, 
one iu hot milk for luncheon, and one in ray small pudding at din- 
ner. When I left Holm Hill. Mrs. Russell was in despair over he 1 



138 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



hens; thirty of them yielded but three eggs a day. Yours, too, 
may have struck work; and in that case never miud. Only if you 
could send us some, it would be a mercy. 

Only think of my getting here every morning a tumbler of milk 
warm from the cow, and all frothed up, just as at the Gill and at 
Holm Hill, to my infinite benefit. The stable-fed cow does not 
give such delicious milk as those living on grass in the open air; 
but still it is milk without a drop of water or anything in it, and 
milked out five minutes before 1 drink it. Mr. C. says it is a daily 
recurring miracle. The miracle is worked by our Rector's wife, 
who keeps two cows for her children, and she has kindly included 
me as ' the biggest and best child; ' and with a key into their garden 
my cook can run to their stable with a tumbler and be back at my 
bedside in ten minutes. Indeed, it is impossible to tell who is 
kindest to me; my fear is always that I shall be stifled with roses. 
They make so much of me, and I am so weak. The Countess of 
Airlie was kneeling beside my sofa yesterday embracing my feet, 
and kissing my hands! A German girl ' said the other day, 'I 
think, Mrs. Carlyle, a many many peoples love you very dear! ' It 
is true, and what I have done to deserve all that love I haven't the 
remotest conception. All this time I have been keeping better — 
getting some sleep, not much nor good; but some, better or worse, 
every night, ami the irritation has been much subsided. Yesterday 
afternoon and this afternoon it is troubling me more than usual. 
Perhaps the damp in the air has brought it on. or perhaps I have 
been overdone with people and things; I must tic inure careful. I 
have always a terrible consciousness at the bottom of my mind that 
at any moment, if God will, I may be thrown back into the old 
agonies. I can never feel confident of life and of ease in life again, 
and it is best so. 

I cannot tell you how gentle and good Mr. Carlyle is! He is 
busy as ever, but he studies my comfort and peace as he never did 
before. I have engaged a new housemaid, and given warning to 
the big beautiful blockhead who has filled that function here for 
the last nine months; this has been a worry too. God bless you all. 

Your affectionate 

Jake W. Carlyle. 



LETTER 291. 

For years before this there had been talk from me of a brougham 
for her; to which she listened with a pleased look, but always in 
perfect silence. Latterly I had beeu more stringent and immedi- 
ate upon it ; and had not I been so smothered under ' Frederick,' 
the poor little enterprise (finance now clearly permitting) would 
surely have been achieved. Alas, why was not it? That terrible 
street accident, for instance, might have been avoided. But she 
continued silent when I spoke or proposed, with a noble delicacy 
all her own; forebore to take the least step; would not even by a 
shake of the head, or the least twinkle of satire in her eyes, pro- 
voke me to take a step. Those ' hired flys ' so many per week, 
which were my lazy succedaneum, had to be almost forced upon 
ber, and needed argument. It was in vain that I said (what was 
the exact truth), ' No wife in England deserves better to have a 
brougham from her husband, or is worthier to drive in it. Why 
won't you go and buy one at once? ' After her return to me the 
propriety ami necessity was still more evident; but her answer 
still was (and 1 perceived would always be) that fine, childlike 
silence, grateful, pleased look, and no word spoken. 

Whereupon at length — what I ever since reckon among the 
chosen mercies of Heaven to me — I did at last myself stir in the 
matter, and in a week or little more (she also, on sight of this, 
skilfully co-operating, advising me. as she well could) the long 
talked of was got done. God be forever thanked that I did not 
loiter longer! She had infinite satisfaction in this poor gift; was 
boundlessly proud of it, as her husband's testimony to her; be- 
lieved it to be the very saving of her, and the source of all the 
health she had, &c. &c. The noble little soul! So pitiful a bit of 
tribute from me, and to her it was richer than kingdoms. 

Oil, when she was taken from me, and I used in my gloomy 
walks to pass that door where the carriage-maker first brought it 
out for her approval, the feeling in me was (and at times still is) 
deeper than tears; and my heart wept tragically loving tears, 
though my gloomy eyes were dry! And her mare, named 'Bel- 
lona! ' There is a bitter-sweet in all that, and a pious wealth of 
woe and love that will abide with me till I die. No more of it 
here (August 14, 1809).— T. C. 

Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill, Thoruldll, Dumfriesshire. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Monday, Oct. 31, 1864. 
Dearest, — I am not tied to two hours now for my drive, which 
was long enough to stay out in a ' fly,' costing, as it did, six shil- 
lings! I have now set up a nice little Brougham, or Clarence (as 
you call it), all to myself, with a smart grey horse and an elderly 
driver (iu Mr. C.'s old brown surtout)! "I was at half-a-dozen 
coachmakers' yards seeking that carriage, examining with my own 
eyes, on my own legs! Of course, I took advice as to the outside 

1 Reichenbach's daughter, probably. 



quality. Mr. Fairie and the livery-stable man, who has kept Mr. 
C.'s horse these dozen years, both approved my choice, and con- 
sidered it a great bargain. Sixty pounds, and perfectly new, ind 
handsome in a plain way. 

It needs no unbleached linen to protect it, being dark blue 
morocco and cloth inside, which won't dirty in a hurry; and it is 
all glass in front like Mrs. Ewart's, so you will see finely about you 
when I drive you to see the lions here. That prospect is one of 
my pleasures in the new equipage. I have nothing to show you 
like the drive to Sanquhar; but the parks here are very beautiful, 
and I never drive through them now without fancying you at my 
side and seeing them with your fresh eyes. Mr. C. expects to ac- 
tually finish his book about New Year, and then — please God that 
I keep well enough for it — we go to Lady Ashburton's, at a new 
place she has got in Devonshire, where it will be warmer than 
here, and evidently I can't have too much change! When we come 
back, and the weather is fit for the journey, the Doctor and you 
must come. 

It has been moist, even rainy, of late; and damp seems to suit me 
worst of anything. My appetite defies quinine to bring it back, 
and the irritation has been more distressing. Still, I am no worse, 
on the whole, than when I left you; and I force myself to take al- 
ways the new milk and t lie custard at twelve. There is a weighing- 
machine at our greengrocer's, at the bottom of the street, but I 
dare not get myself weighed. 

I don't like that photograph of Mary at all. The crinoline quite 
changes her character and makes her a stranger for me. 1 want 
the one that is, as I have always seen her, a sensible girl with no 
crinoline. I would like her, if she would get herself done for me, 
as she is on washing mornings — in the little pink bed-gown and 
blue petticoat. I send a shilling in stamps for the purpose, but 
don't force her inclinations in the matter. 

My friend Mr. Forster was at Muller's trial the last day — saw him 
receive his sentence, and said he behaved very well. When the 
sentence was pronounced he bowed to the judge, and walked away 
with the turnkey. But at the little door leading down from the court 
he stopped, and said to the turnkey that he wished to say a few 
words to the judge; and the turnkey led him back; and he said 
something which could not be heard, on account of his keeping his 
hand at his mouth to stead}- it. Forster said the only sign of emo- 
tion he had given, all through the business, was a quivering of his 
lips. When told to speak out he removed his hand, and said 
courteously to the judge: ' I have had a most fair trial! but I can- 
not help saying some of the worst, things said by the witnesses 
against me are gross falsehoods.' Then he seemed to break down, 
and hurried out. I am certain, had it not been that every juryman 
felt his personal safety on the railway compromised by the ac- 
quittal of this man, he would not have been condemned to death 
on the evidence. It is clear to everybody he had no premeditation 
of murder, and that Mr. Briggs threw himself out of the carriage, 
and probably caused his own death thereby. The poor wretch, re- 
turning from his visit to his ' unfortunate,' having taken a second- 
class ticket, had seen Mr. Briggs with his glittering watch-chain 
get into the first-class carriage, and jumped iu after him, thinking 
the chain would take him to America. It was to take him to a far 
other land! Curious that he got off, that night, without the dis- 
covery of his ticket being second-class. The train had been very 
late, and, contrary to all "use and wont, the tickets were not asked 
for in the carriages. 

I seud you a nice letter from Thomas Erskine, the author of 
many religious books — which I never read, except the first ('Evi- 
dences of Christianity '). He is a fine old Scotch gentleman, such 
as are hardly to be found extant now. Also one from Lady A. 

Love to the Doctor. Has the ' young man ' from Laich been to 
call for you? 

Tell me about the poor woman in Thornhill who was to have the 
operation. Mrs. Beck, was that the name? 

Kind regards to Mrs. Ewart, and compliments to Mrs. Mac- 

gowan. 

Your loving 

Jane Carlyle. 

Dr. Carlyle left for Lancashire this morning. He will be back in 
Dumfries shortly, aud said he would go up to tell you about me. 



LETTER 292. 

Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill, ThornliiU, Dumfriesshire. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Satnrday, Nov. 12, 1864. 
Dearest Mary, — At the beginning of this cold, during the time 1 
was constantly retching, and could swallow nothing, I got a moral 
shock which would. I think, have killed me at St. Leonards; and 
all it did to me, I think, was to astonish and disgust me. I told 
you I was parting with my big beautiful housemaid because she 
was an incorrigible goose, and destructive and wasteful beyond 
all human endurance. As a specimen of the waste, figure three 
pounds of fresh butter at twenty pence a pound regularly con 
sumed in the kitchen, and half a pound of tea at four shillings 
made away with in four days! Then, as a specimen of the destruc- 
tion — figure all, every one of my beautiful, fine, aud some of them 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



139 



quite new, table napkins actually 'worn out' of existence! Not a 
fag pf them to be found; and good sheets all in rags; besides a 
boileV burst, a pump-well gone irrecoverably dry, a clock made to 
strik« fourteen every hour, and all the china or crockery in the 
house either disappeared or cracked! To be sure, the housemaid 
was not alone to bear the blame of all the mischief, and the cook 
was to be held responsible for the waste of victuals at least. But 
Mary— the one who attended me at St. Leonards — though the slow- 
est and stupidest of servants, had so impressed me with the idea of 
her trustworthiness, and her devotion to me, that I could accuse 
her of jnothing but stupidity and culpable weakness in allowing the 
other girl, seven years her junior, to rule even in the larder! Ac- 
cordingly I engaged an elderly woman to be cook and housekeeper, 
and Mary was to be housemaid, and wait on me as usual. Helen 
(the housemaid) meanwhile took no steps about seeking a place, 
and when I urged her to do so, declared she couldn't conceive why 
I wanted to part with her. When I told her she was too destruc- 
tive for my means, she answered excitedly: ' Well! when I am out 
of the house, and can't bear the blame of everything any longer, 
you will then find out who it is that makes away with the tea, and 
the butter, and all the things!' As there was nobody else to bear 
the blame but Mary, and as I trusted her implicitly, I thought no 
better of the girl for this attempt to clear herself at the expense of 
nobody knew who; especially as she would not explain when ques- 
tioned. When I told slow, innoceut Mary, she looked quite 
amazed, and said : ' I don't think Helen knows what she is saying 
sometimes; she is very strange!' 

Well, Mary asked leave to go and see her family in Cambridge- 
shire before the new servant came home, and got it, though very 
inconvenient to me. When she took leave of me the night before 
starting, she said in her half-articulate way: 'I shall be always 
wondering how you are till I get back.' She was to be away 
nearly a week. Mrs. Southam, who sat up at night with me last 
winter, my Charlotte's mother, came part of the day to help 
Helen. She is a silent woman, never meddling; so I was sur- 
prised when she said to me, while lighting my bedroom fire, the 
day my cold was so bad: 'Helen tells me, ma'am, you are part- 
ing with her?' 'Full time,' said I; 'she is a perfect goose. 
' You know best, ma'am,' said the woman; ' but I always like ill to 
see the innocent suffering for the guilty ! ' ' What do you mean V ' 
Iasked; 'who is the innocent and who is the guilty?' 'Well, 
ma'am,' said the woman, ' it is known to all the neighbours round 
here; you will be told some day, and if I don't tell you now, you 
will blame me for having let you be so deceived. Mary is the worst 

of girls! and all the things you have been missing 

have been spent on her man and her friends. There has been con- 
stant company kept in your kitchen since there was no fear of your 
seeing it; and whenever Helen threatened to tell you, she fright- 
ened her into silence by threats of poisoning her and cutting her 
own throat! ' 

Now, my dear, if you had seen the creature Mary you would just 
as soon have suspected the Virgin Mary of such things! But I have 
investigated, and found it all true. For two years I have been 
cheated and made a fool of, and laughed at for my softness, by this 
half-idiotic-lookiug woman; and while she was crying up in my 
bedroom — moaning out, 'What would become of her if I died?' 
and witnessing in me as sad a spectacle of human agony as could 
have been anywhere seen; she was giving suppers to men and 
women downstairs; laughing and swearing — oh, it is too dis- 
gusting! 

God bless you, dearest. 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 293. 
Mrs. Russell, Bolm Bill, Tlwrnlull, Dumfriesshire. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Monday, Dec. 20, 1864. 

Dearest Friend, — If it is as cold, and snows as hard, there as 
here, you will be fancying me broken down if I don't write and tell 
you I am taking all that very easily; driving out every day from 
two to three hours, as usual. The cold is not so trying for me as 
the damp, I find. My horse has not stood it nearly so well! I had 
him roughened the first day of the frost and snow, but nevertheless 
he managed to get a strain in one of his hind legs, and is now in 
great trouble, poor beast, with a farrier attending him, and his leg 
'swollen awful!' He is a beautiful grey horse, given me, whether 
I would or no, by Lad}' Ashburton; but young, and, I am afraid, 
too sensitive for this world! ' Whenever he is the least put out of 
his way, he goes off his food,' the groom says. Nobody can say 
when he will be fit for work again — if ever. Meanwhile I get a 
horse from the livery stables. 

The most spirited thing I have done since you last heard of me 
was driving to. Acton with — Madame Elise! to see her beautiful 
place there, and take a dinner-tea with her, and back with her, ar- 
riving at home as late as six o'clock! It was a pleasant little excur- 
sion. Elsie, as a woman, with a house and children, is charming. 
It is a magnificent house, with a dinning-room about three times 
the size of the Wallace Hall dining-room, and a drawing-room to 
match; both rooms fitted up with the artist-genius she displays in 
her dresses! It is an old manor house, with endless passages; and 



at every turn of the passage there is a bust— Lord Byron, Sir Wal- 
ter Scott, Pope, Milton, Locke. 

The drawing- room opens into a conservatory that would take Mrs. 
Pringle's into a small corner of it. There is an immense garden 
round the house, with greenhouses, and a green field beyond the 
garden, with sheep in it — clean sheep! A middle-aged, ladylike 
governess took charge of the three children: perfect little beauties! 
and the nurse and other maids had the air of ' a great family ' about 
them. They all treated 'Madame' as if she had been a princess! 
A triumph of genius! 

The only drawback to my satisfaction was a dread of catching 
cold. The immense rooms had immense fires in them. But their 
size, and the knowledge that they were only lived in from Saturday- 
till Monday in a general way, give me a sense of chill ; and then be- 
abroad so late at this season was very imprudent. I went to bed 
with a pain in my shoulder and much self upbraiding; but got some 
sleep, and no harm was done. 

Do you know that bottle of whisky you gave me has been of the 
greatest use! Things affect one so differently at different times? 
Whisky seemed to fever me at Holm Hill. Here it calms me, and 
helps me to sleep I take a tablespoonful raw when I get desperate 
about .sleeping, and invariably, hitherto, with good effect. I take no 
quinine, nor other medicine, at present, except the aperient pills. 
Half a one I have to take every night. The potash-water I like 
very much with my wine and my milk, and take from one to two 
bottles of it every day. 

I have not been weighed again; but I don't think I can have lost 
any more, as I eat better since the new cook took me in hand. She 
continues to be a most comfortable servant: such courtesy 1 such 
equability of temper! such obligingness! and all that so cheap! for 
the weekly bills are less than when I had ignorant servants. The 
house-maid is also a good servant, but not so agreeable a one. The 
droop at. the corners of her mouth, indicating a plaintive, even peev- 
ish, nature.odoes not belie her I think. When Mr. C. finds fault, 
instead of going to do what he wants, she cries and sulks. When 
are you going to give me little Mary? My compliments to her and 
to Lady Macbeth. 

My grateful and warm love to your husband. To yourself a hun- 
dred kisses. I will write soon again. 

Your true friend, 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 294. 

Mrs. Bassell, Bolm Bill, Thornliill, Dumfriesshire. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Dec. 27, 1864. 

Oh. darling, I have been wanting to write to you every day for a 
week, but the interruptions have been endless, and the unavo'idable 
letters many. On Christinas Day I thought I should have a quiet 
day for writing, Mr. C. being to dine at Forster's. But a young 
German lady of whom I am very fond ' could not let me be left 
alone,' and came at eleven in the morning and-stayed till nine at 
night; ami then our Rector — bless him! — came when he left church 
and sat with me till eleven. . 

I wonder how you would have taken a thing that befell me last 
Wednesday? I was waiting before a. shop in Regent Street for 
some items of stationery; and a young woman, black-eyed, rosy- 
cheeked, with a child in her arms, thrust herself up to the carriage 
window and broke forth in a paroxysm of begging: refusing to 
stand aside even when the shopman was showing me envelopes. 
Provoked at her noise and pertinacity, I said : ' No, I will give you 
not a single penny as an encouragment to annoy others as you are 
annoying me.' If there be still such a thing as the evil eye, that 
beggar-woman fixed the evil eye on me, and said slowly, and hiss- 
ing out the words: ' This is Wednesday, lady; perhaps you will be 
dead by Christmas Day, and have to leave all behind you! Better 
to have given me a little of it now! ' and she scuttled away, leaving 
me with the novel sensation of being under a curse. 

Would you have minded that after the moment? I can't say I 
took it to heart. At the same time, I was rather glad when, Christ- 
mas Day being over, I found myself, alive and just as well as before. 

Dr. B writes that his wife had been dreaming about me 

again. Bessie is a most portentous dreamer. If I had been told 
this between the Wednesday and Christmas Day, it would really 
have frightened me, I think. 

My dear. I have got five drops of my heart's blood congealed 
and fastened together to encircle your wrist, as a memorial of my 
last visit and as a New Year's blessing. I am hesitating whether 
to send it by post or by railway. I never lost, or knew personally 
of anything being lost by post except the Whigham butterfly, so I 
had best risk it; there is such confusion of parcels by rail at this 
time of year. Only I will not register it, as I always think that 
just points out to the covetous postman what is worth stealing. 

Please to send a single line or an old newspaper by return of 
post, that I may be sure the thing has not misgone. 

Ever your affectionate 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 295. 

Sunday night, January 5, 1865, went out to post-office with my 
last leaf of ' Frederick ' MS. Evening still vivid to me. I was not 



140 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



joyful of mood; sad rather, mournfully thankful, but indeed half 
killed, and utterly wearing out and sinking into stupefied collapse 
after my ' comatose efforts to continue the long flight of thirteen 
years- to finis Ou her face, too, when I went out, there was a si- 
lent, faint, and pathetic smile, which I well felt at the moment, 
and better uowl Often enough had it cut me to the heart to think 
what she was suffering by this book, in which she had no share, no 
interest, nor any word at all ; and with what noble and perfect con- 
stancy of silence she bore it all. My own heroic little woman! 
For long mouths after this I sank and sank into ever new depths 
of stupefaction and dull misery of body and mind; nay, once or 
twice into momentary spurts of impatience even with her, which 
now often burn me with vain remorse : Madame Elise, e.g.— I 
sulkily refused to alight at the shop there, though I saw and knew 
she gently wished it (and right well deserved it); Brompton Muse- 
um (which she took me to, always so glad to get me with her, and 
so seldom could). Oh, cruel, cruel! I have remembered Johnson 
and Uttoxeter, on thought of that Elise cruelty more than once; 
and if any clear energy ever returned to me, might some day imi- 
tate it.— T. C. 

To Mrs. Austin, The QUI, Annan. 

5 Clieyne Row, Chelsea: Feb. 1865. 

My dear, — The box is come, aud this time the eggs have been a 
great success, not a single one broken! Neither Were the cakes 
broken to any inconvenient degree. Already they are half eaten, 
by myself. Mr. C. wouldn't take a morsel because ' there was but- 
ter in them — a fatal mistake ou the part of poor Mary! ' I tolcLhim 
I believed it was not butter but cream, and no 'mistake ' at all; as 
the cakes you made for me in that way at the Gill agreed with me 
quite well. It was so kind of you to take immediate note of my 
longing! My dear little woman, you not only do kind things, but 
you do them in such a kind way! Many a kind action misses the 
grateful feelings it should win by the want of graciousness in the 
doing, 

I continue improving; but a week of terrible pain has given me 
a good shake, and I don't feel in such good heart about the Devon- 
shire visit as I did. Still it stands settled at present that we go on 
the 20th, God willing. For how long will depend on how Mr. C. 
gets on with his deep, &c. 

I shall take my housemaid with me as lady's-maid; for I shudder 
at the notion of being at the mercy of other people's servants when 
I am so weak aud easily knocked down. She is a very respectable 
woman, the new housemaid, and both she aud Mrs. 'Warren (the 
cook) were as kind to me as kind could be when I was laid up. I 
never was so well cared for before, aud with so little fuss, since I 
left my mother's house. It is a real blessing to have got good, effi- 
cient, comfortable servants at last, and I may say I have earned it 
by the amount of bad servants I have endured. 

I have a great deal to do to-day, and little strength ; so good-bye. 
I will write soon again. 

Affectionately yours, 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 296. 

Mrs. Braid, Green, End, Edinburgh. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Feb. 14, 1865. 

My own dear Betty! Oh. I am sorry for you! sorrier than I can 
say in words ! I know what a crushing sorrow this will be for you. 
I, who know your affectionate, unselfish heart, know that the con- 
solations, which some would see for you in poor suffering George's 
death, will be rather aggravations of the misery! That you should 
have found at last rest from the incessant, anxious," wearin°- cares, 
that have been your lot for years and years— oh. so many 'years— 
will be no relief, no consolation to you! This rest will be to you, 
at first and for long, more irksome,' more terrible than the strain on 
body and miud that went before. He that is taken from you was 
not merely your own only son, but he was too the occupation of 
your life, and that is the hardest of all losses to bear up under! 
Oh, Betty darling, I wish I were near you! If I had my arm about 
your neck, and your hand in mine, I think I might say things that 
would comfort you a little, and make you feel that, so'longas I am 
in life, you are not without a child to love you. Indeed, indeed, it 
is the sort of love one has for one's own mother that I have for 
you, my dearest Betty! But here I am, four hundred miles away; 
and with so little power of locomotion compared with what I once 
had! And the words fall so cold and flat on paper! 

1 have been dangerously ill; about three weeks ago I got a chill, 
at least so the doctor said, and the result was inflammation of the 
bowels. I was in terrible agony for some days, and confined to 
bed for a week. I am still very feeble even for me; but there is 
no return of the miserable nervous illness, which kept me so ruined 
for more than a year. I cannot write much. 

Give my thanks to Mrs. Duncan, 1 who seems a most kind, nice 
woman. I will write to her when I am a little more able. My kind 
regards to your husband. 

Your own bairn, 

Jeannie Welsh Carlyle. 



Not known to me. 



LETTER 297. 

Seaforth (near Seaton, Devonshire) is the Dowager Lady Ash- 
burton's pretty cottage, who waited for us at the station that Wed- 
nesday evening, and was kiudness itself. It was Wednesday, March 
8, 1865, when we made the journey. The day was dry aud tem- 
perate; we had a carriage to ourselves, and she (though far weaker 
than I had the least idea of — stupid I!) made no complaint, nor, 
indeed, took any harm ; though at the end (Lady Ashburton hav- 
ing brought an open carriage unfit for the coldish evening of a day 
so bright), we had to wrap our invalid in quite a heap of rugs and 
shawls, covering her very face and head; in which she patiently 
acquiesced, nor did she suffer by it afterwards. 

I think we stayed above a month; and in spite of the noise, the 
exposure, etc., she did really well, slept wonderfully, aid was 
charming in her cheerful weakness. She drove out almost or alto- 
gether daily. Sir Walter and Lady Trevelyau were close neigh- 
bors, often fellow-guests. Sir Walter and I rode almost daily, on 
ponies; talk innocent, quasi-scientific even, but dull, dull! My 
days were heavy laden, but had iu them something of hope. My 
darling's well-being helped much. Ah, me! ah, "me! We drove 
to Exeter one day (Lady A., a Miss Dempster, aud we two); how 
pretty and cheery her ways that day! Lady A. came up to London 
with us. From a newspaper we learned the death of t'obden 
(which may serve to date if needed). — T. 0. 

Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill. 
Seaforth Lodge, Seaton, Devonshire: March 10, 1865. 

Dearest,— I was to have written before I went on my travels, 
but adverse circumstances yvere too powerful. First, the nausea, 
which I think I complained of iu my last letter, kept increasing, so 
that I had no heart to do anything that could lie let alone till the 
last possible moment; and my last days were cramped full of shop- 
ping, aud packing, and leave-taking, and settling with workmen 
about repairs, and white-washing to be doue iu my absence; so 
that any moment left me to bless myself iu was devoted to lying 
quite down on the sofa, rather than letter-writing. 

When we started on Wednesday morning, with, on my part, no 
sleep ' to speak of,' and' five hours of railway before us, besides a 
carriage drive after, my mood was of the blackest. But George 
Cooke was at the station to look after our luggage; and. halfway, 
the sun broke out. aud it was new country for me part of the way, 
and very beautiful. And the sheep, bless them, were not only 
white as milk, but had dear wee lambs skipping beside them! And 
the river, that falls into the sea near here, was not muddy and slug- 
gish, like all the rivers (very few indeed) I had seen since I left dear 
Nith — but clear as crystal, and bright blue. And, at the end, such 
a lovely house, on a high cliff overlooking the bluest sea. And 
such a lovely and loveable hostess! So truly ' the latter end of that 
woman was better than the beginning.' I am glad to find the in- 
sane horror I conceived of the sea, all in one night at St. Leonards, 
has quite passed away. I love it agaiu as I had always done till 
then; aud rather regret that no sound of it reaches over the cliff. 

But there is something I want to say to you, more interesting to 
me than the picturesque, — something that my heart is set on — about 
your coming to see London. I know you would make no diffi- 
culty for my sake, if for nothing else. It is that calmly obstinate 
husband of yours, who carries his love of home to such excess, 
that is the ' lion iu the way ' for my imagination. Yet, if he knew 
how much good I expect to get of having you iu London with me, 
aud what efforts I will make to repa3 r him for his efforts, lie, who 
is so kind, so obliging to the poorest old women of the country- 
side, will surely not resist my entreaties. You are to understand 
that, besides the pleasure of the thing to me, your coming'at the 
time I ask would be doing me a real service; Mr. C. is going ou his 
travels shortly after our return to London from this place — some 
two or three weeks hence, if all goes right here, and I am to be 
left alone at Chelsea. Accompanying him would not suit me at 
all; indeed, several of the houses he is going to could not receive 
us both at a time, as we need two bedrooms. Aud then I should 
prefer doing my outing (as the Londoners call it) in autumn. So I 
shall be alone, needing company; and of all company, I should like 
best tlie Doctor's and yours. Then, when he is away, I have 
plenty of house-room, which is not the case when he is at home, 
seeing that he occupies two floors of the house 'all to himself!' 
Aud I have my time all to myself to show you about London, and 
my carriage to take you wherever you liked. Oh, my dear, it 
would be so nice! I have heard you say the Doctor could leave 
the bank ' for a fortnight whenever he liked. Well! if he could 
not stay longer than a fortnight, he might bring you up; and see 
and do" all tiiat could be seen and done in one fortnight, aud then 
leave you for a good while longer. You would have no difficulty 
iu going back alo-<g the road you had come; or I might find some- 
one going that direction to take charge of you: or, if you were 
very good, and stayed long enough, I would go and take charge of 
you myself, and stay, not "three months next, time (!) but a week or 
two. Oh, my darling, it would make me so glad! Surely, surely, 
you and the Doctor will not refuse me. Mr. Carlyle spoke of 

1 Dr. Russell's special employment for years back was superintendence of a 
country bank; but bis gratis practice of medicine, and of every helpful thing 
in that region, continued and continues (1869). 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



141 



■writing to you himself to press your staying with us till lie re- 
turns. ' 

[Not signed] J. W. C. 

LETTER 298. 

Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill. 

5 Cheyne Row: May 4, 1865. 

Darling, — When I came in to-day, and saw a letter from you on 
the table, I felt myself make as near an approximation to a blush 
as my sallow complexion is capable of. It was a little ' coal of 
fire ' heaped on my head! For days back I had been thinking how 
neglectful I must seem to you, making no answer to that kindest 
of letters and of invitations, written, too. when you were ailing, 
and 'looking at the dark of things!' You had still managed to 
look at the bright of me, since you could believe that my presence 
would 'cheer you' instead of boring you. But it was not that I 
was really not caring to write, nor yet that I was giving way to 
physical languor (though that has been considerable). It was that 
for the last week or two I have been kept in a whirl of things 
which made it out of the question for me to sit down quietly, and 
make up my miud what to say. 

Mr. C. has been sitting to Woolner for his bust; and it seems he 
' is as difficult to catch a likeness of as a flash of lightning' is; so 
that it is a trying business for both sitter and sculptor. I have 
had to drive up to Woolner' s every two or three da3'S, and climb 
steep endless stairs to tell what faults I see. And in connection 
with this bust, there has been such a sitting to photographers as never 
was heard of! Woolner wants a variety of photographs to work 
from, and the photographer wants a variety to sell ! and Mr. Car- 
lyle yields to their mutual entreaties. And then, when they have 
had their will of him, they insist on doing me (for my name's 
sake). And Mr. C. insists "too, thinking always the new one may 
In- more successful than former ones; so that, with one thing and 
another, I have been worried from morning till night, and post- 
poned writing till I should have got leisure to think what was to 
be written. But I must not put off any longer, since you are get- 
ting uneasy about me. 

I am not worse — indeed, as to the sickness and the sleeplessness 
I am rather better in both respects — but I am weak and languid, 
have little appetite, and am getting thinner. The best thing for 
me would be to get away; and away to you, rather than anywhere 
else! I know that well enough in both my heart and my head; but 
one cannot do just what one likes best, and even what is best for 
one. I could not go with Mr. C. for several reasons. First, hav- 
ing made up his mind to go off ' at his own sweet will,' and having 
understood that I was to stay behind, he would now find it a great 
incumbrance to take me with him. Second, I have invited Dr. 

B and Bessy to pay me a visit so soon as I have a bedroom for 

them; and they have promised to come for a few days. 2 About the 
end of May is the doctor's leisurest time at St. Leonards. Third, 
Mr. C. wants the dining-room papered, and fitted up with book- 
cases from the study at the top of the house; which is too long a 
climb for him now that ' Frederick ' is done. That he expects me 
to ' see to ' in his absence. And how long it will take me to ' see 
to it ' will depend on the workmen. 

For the rest, I am uncertain how long he will be away; if 
'months' (as he speaks of), there might still be time for me, after I 
had finished my business here, to rush off to Holm Hill, and stay 
as many weeks with you as I stayed months last year. I should so 
like it! And Mr. C. wouldn't object, though he would find it very 
absurd to be taking such a long journey so soon again. I put out 
& feeler the other night; Miss Dempster was pressing him to visit 
her when he should be in Forfarshire (he is going to Linlathen 
amongst other places), and I said: 'I shall perhaps be nearer you 
than he will be! Lady Airlie was pressing me so hard to-day to 
come to Cortachy Castle, that there is no saying but I will follow 
him north.' 'Indeed!' he said, not with a frown, but a smile. 
And I added, ' If he stays away long I may at least get the length 
of Dumfriesshire.' But till I get my workmen out of the house, 
and know something definite of Mr. C.'s plans, I can determine 
nothing. Will you let me leave it open? I like so ill to say posi- 
tively, and absolutely, 'No, I cannot come this year!' Because, 
you see, having a character for standing by my word to keep up. 1 
could not, after an absolute 'no' said now, avail myself of any 
facilities for going to you which may turn up later. So may I 
leave the question open? 

How absurd! In telling you on the other sheet how I was bodily, 
I quite forgot to mention my most serious ailment for the last six 
■weeks. My right arm has gone the way that my left went two 
years ago, gives me considerable pain, so that I cannot lie upon it, 
or make any effort (such as ringing a bell, opening a window, &c. 
&c.) with it; and if anyone shakes my hand heartily, I — shriek! 
Geraldine Jewsbury is always asking, ' Have you written to Dr. 
Russell yet about your arm? ' But what could anyone do before 
for the other arm? All that was tried was useless except quinine; 
and quinine destroys my sleep. I must just hope it will mend of 
itself as the other did. ' Your ever-attached friend, 

Jake W. Carlyle. 



1 Alas) they never came. 



■ They never came. 



LETTER 299. 

Today (August 9, 1866) I have discovered in drawers of pedestal 
these mournful letters of my darling in 1865. They had lain turn 
in my writing-case, till their covers were all lost, and there is now 
no correct dating of them. I have tried to save the sequence and 
be as correct as I could. Here are the cardinal dates. About May 
20 I went to Dumfries, thence to the Gill; and she, here at home 
(courageous little soul!), began doing this room (the very beauty of 
which now pains and amazes me). 

Beginning of May her right arm took ill, as her left had done last 
year, and she painfully went and came between Streatham and 
here for some time (perhaps near a fortnight), writing with her left 
hand. June 17, she passed me (little guessing of her in the rail) 
and went to Holm Hill; very ill then too, still left hand; and 
thence in July to Nithbank, and after about ten or twelve days 
(middle or farther of July) went home somewhat better; got her 
roomdone, recovered her right hand, and went to Folkestone to 
Miss Bromley's for a few days (which proved her last visit, little as 
I then anticipated). Her beautiful figure and presence welcoming 
me home (end of August) will never leave my memory more. 
— T. C. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., The Hill, Dumfries. 

5 Cheyne Row, Wednesday, May 24, 1865. 

I wonder if you will get this letter to-morrow, should it be put 
in the pillar to-night? Dear! dear! should no word reach you till 
Friday morning, you will be ' vaixed,' and perhaps frightened be- 
sides. 

The figure I cut on Monday morning was not encouraging. 
When I had cried a very little at being left by myself, I lay on the 
sofa till mid-day, not sleeping, but considering what to do for the 
best with this aftn, which had got to a pitch, and was reducing me 
to the state of last year in point of sleep. And the result of my 

considerations' was, first, a note to Dr. B , urging him and 

Bessy to keep their promise of spending a couple of days with me 
as soon as possible ; and next, in the meantime, a call at Quilter's 
to order the old quinine pills and a bottle of castor oil. If I am to 
be kept awake all night at any rate by the pain, I may as well have 
recourse to the only prescription which did any good to the other 
arm— even at the cost of sleep. That first day I also called at the 
carpenter's, to lever himself, for he ' had great things to do.' Then 
on to luncheon at the Gomms'. Do you remember I was engaged 
to luncheon there? They have a beautiful, large, old-fashioned, 
cool house. And the luncheon was a sonnet done into dainties. I 
brought away Lord Lothian's book on America, but have not yet 
read a word of it, nor of anything else — not even of Mrs. Paulet's 
novel, nor my own 'Daily Telegraph.' On my return, I came upon 
Geraldine in Cheyne Row ; and she 'could not leave me' till ten at 
night, I ' looked such a ghost.' 

On Tuesday I had to take Mrs. Blunt to make calls at Fulham ; 

and then I ' did the civil thing ' to Mrs. F . F was in, 

and talked much of your ' gentleness and tenderness of late,' and 
the ' much greater patience you had in speaking of everybody and 
everything.' And I thought to myself, ' If he had only heard you 
a few hours after that walk with him, in which you had made such 
a lamblike impression! ' He expressed a wish to read Sirs. Paulet's 
novel, and I have sent it to him. A very curious, clever, ' exces- 
sively ridiculous, and perfectly unnecessary ' book is Mrs. Paulet's 
novel, so far as I have read in the first volume. And Mrs. Paulet 
herself I don't know what to make of, for I have seen her. In my 
saintly forgiveness and beautiful pity I left a card for her yesterday ; 
and she came a few hours after ; and Geraldine, too, came ; and I 
was not left alone till half-past ten, when it was too late to write. 

This morning (I don't know by what right) I expected a letter 
from you, which did not come till the afternoon. And positively 
I was almost well pleased there was no letter — to answer, for I had 
' indulged in a cup ' of castor oil, and was — oh, so sick; and besides, 
that matter had unexpectedly taken to ' culminating ' again. Last 
night there had come from Jessie Hiddlestone a very nice letter, 
not accepting my rejection on the score of the ' situation ' being 
' too dull for her,' but assuring me that she would not ' be the least 
dull and discontented,' and 'altogether' throwing a quite different 
and rosier colour on the project. I will inclose the letter, and you 
will read it, and tell me if you think I was right in being moved 
thereby to engage her ; for that is what I have done this forenoon, 
in the middle of my sorrows of castor oil ! 

For the rest I have no doubt you will get better, and do well 
there for a time. Perhaps I shall take flight myself if my terrible 
nights continue too long for endurance and this wearing pain lasts. 
It is pulling me down sadly ; and neuralgia has such an effect on 
the spirits. 

One thing I have to say, that I beg you will give ear to. I have 
not recovered yet the shock it was to me to find, after six months, 
all those weak, wretched letters I wrote you from Holm Hill ' dad- 
ding about ' in the dining-room ; and should you use my letters in 
that wav again I shall know it by instinct, and not write to you at 
all ! There ! 

Please return Jessie Hiddlestone's letter. 

Your ever affectionate 

Jane W. Carlyle. 



143 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



LETTER 300. 
To T. Carlyle, Esq., The Hill, Dumfries. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Saturday, May 27, 1865. 

I think, dear, you must have lost a day this week — must have — 
stop! No! I should have said— gained a day! You bid me 'not 
bother myself writing to-morrow, but send a word on Saturday.' 
And the to-morrow is Saturday. This day on which I am not to 
'bother myself writing' is Saturday. I posted a letter to you yes- 
terday at the right time. That night post is later than you think. 
It was past nine when Fanny put in the pillar the letter you re- 
ceived the following evening at eight. 

My quinine and castor oil have quite failed of doing the good to 
my right arm which they formerly did to my left. The pain gets 
more severe and more continuous from day to day. Last night it 
kept me almost entirely awake. I often wonder that I am able to 
keep on foot during the day, and take my three hours' drives, and 
talk to the people who come to relieve my loneliness, with that arm 
always in pain, as if a dog were gnawing and tearing at it ! But 
anything rather than the old nervous misery, which was not to be 
called pain at all ! positive natural pain I can bear as well as most 

people. But I wish Dr. B woidd come ! Perhaps he can 

deal with a reality like this, though he could ' do nothing against 
hysterical mania ! ' ' I got the thing he mentioned, Veratrine 
liniment, yesterday, from Quilter ; and Geraldine rubbed it in for 
an hour last night. But, as I said, last night was the worst ! 

George Cooke said you desired him to 'come often, and look 
after me ! ' ' Perfectly unnecessary ; ' I mean the desiring ! 
Couldn't you fetch up Noggs'-' to Dumfries ? So much walking in 
such hot weather must be tiring. 

All good be with you. 

Yours «ever. 

.!. W. C. 

LETTER 301. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., The, Gill. 

Thursday, June 1, 1865. 
Dearest, — 'You must excuse us the day.' I really cannot use 
my hand without extreme pain ; and Geraldine has not come in to 
write for me. 

I am just going off to Dr. Quain ; since Dr. B is postponed 

into the vague. I have been quite wild with the pain, the last two 
nights and days. To-morrow I will go to these good Macmillans 
whom you sneered at as my ' distinguished visitors.' None of the 
more ' distinguished ' have come to me with such practical help and 
sympathy. They are just the right distance off. I can have my 
carriage come and take me home any day to look after the house ; 
and for a drive as usual. 

I think you will be better at the Gill than the Hill, in spite of the 
grand house, if you can only sleep through the railway; and do not 
indulge too far in curds and cream for dinner. 
God bless you. 

Your lamed 

Goody. 

LETTER 302. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., The Gill. 

Streatham Lane : 3 Saturday, June 3, 1865. 

Dearest,^ — You are so good about writing that you deserve to be 
goodly done by; so I write a few lines to-day " under difficulties,' 
though you gave me an excuse for putting off, iu saying you could 
not hear till Tuesday. But I must study brevity, the soul of wit, 
for the cost of physical pain at which I write is something you can 
hardly conceive ! 

When I got your letter telling me to hold my hand, it was too 
late! I had set my heart on doing one more stroke of work (my 
sort of work), fitting up one more room before I died. 4 It was 
all very well to say 'give the room a good cleaning.' But no 
amount of mere cleaning could give that room a clean look, with 
that oori/, dingy paint and paper. To put clean paper without 
fresh paint would only have made the dirtiness of the paint more 
flagrant. And if the painting was not done whilst you were away, 
when was there a chance of doing it? 1 knew I couldn't sieep in 
wet paint; bufl looked to finding a bed somewhere: and the offer 
Of one here came most opportunely. 

The day before leaving home I went to Dr. Quain, who did me 
at least the good of being extremely kind, and eager to help me. 
He said 1 had 'much fever;' and gave me a prescription for that, 
and two other prescriptions. And when I returned from here, I 
was to tell him, and he would 'run over.' I said to him that Dr. 
B had declared I had no organic disease, but only a strong pre- 
disposition to gout! ' Quite right,' he said, 'that is the fuel.' 
'Then,' I asked, 'perhaps this affair in my arm, so much more 
painful than what I had in the left arm, is gout'.' ' ' I have not I In- 
least doubt that it is! ! ' was his answer. Pleasant! 

1 His phrase to me one day at St. Leonards— in that desperate time. 

2 My saucy little Arab (gift of Lady Ashburton). 

3 Mr. Macmillan's house (fine old-fashioned suburban villa there). 
* Alas! and this was it: often have 1 remembered that word. 



Well! I came here about five yesterday; and the good simple 
people welcomed me most honestly; and Mr. Macmillan sang 
Scotch songs, which would have charmed you, all the evening, the 
governess playing an accompaniment. At eleven I retired to 
my beautiful bedrbom, the largest, prettiest, freshest bedroom I 
ever was put to sleep in! And then they left me to the society of 
a watchdog, chained under my window! ! ! It barked and growled 
and howled in the maddest manner till they set it loose at seven in 
the morning. Of course I never closed my eyes for one minute all 
the night! and I got up in the morning a sadder and a wiser woman! 
How to get away without hurting feelings? I was the wretchedest 
woman till I got it settled softly, that when the carriage comes for 
me to-day to take me home for an inspection of the work, it should 
not bring me back, but leave me to sleep or wake in my own quiet 
bed; and to come out to-morrow to spend the day, and sleep here 
or there after, as I liked best. The dog to be ' removed to a greater 
distance.' So address to Cheyne Row. 

Dr. Quain said I must go as soon as possible to Scotland, ' as 
it had agreed so well with me last year.' I said I shuddered at 
the length of the journey; he reminded me that I had done it 
with impunity last year when I was weaker than now. I suppose 
it will come to that before long! I need have no doubt about 
my welcome. 

Since you are not disturbed by that railway which drove me mad, 
you will do well at Mary's; she is so kind and unfussing. But 
3'ou must not exceed iu milk diet, &c. ! You must have mutton! 

And oh, take care with Noggs on these hilly roads! Oh, my 
dear, I am not up to more; my arm is just as if a dog had got it 
in its teetli, and were gnawing at it, and shaking at it furiously. 

Love to Mary. Your ever affectionate 

Jake Carlyle. 

LETTER 303. 

T Carlyle, Esq., The Gill. 
5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Wednesday, June 7, 1865. 
Dear Mr. Carlyle, — You will be disappointed to see my hand- 
writing, instead of Jane's; but to-day it is not a matter of choice, 
but of necessity; for the pain and swelling iu her hand and fingers 
make them entirely helpless; and she has to feed herself with the 
left hand. She has just come in from Mrs. Macmillan's; and has 
been selecting a paper for the dining-room. She incloses the three 
'patterns, which we all think the prettiest of those submitted to us; 
and she says, Will you please to say which of the three yoii like the 
best? I think Jane is a shade better than when she went last Fri- 
day; but still to-day she is very poorly, and pulled down by the 
pain, which seems to increase. She would sleep if it were not for 
that; she does manage to sleep a little. Everything, she says, is 
most charmingly comfortable; and the dog has been reduced to 
silence. 

My great hope is in Scotland; and she seems to look forward to 
going, which in itself is a good thing. Please to address your next 
letter to Streatham Lane, as they are delayed by coming here first. 
I am, dear Mr. Carlyle. 

Yours very respectfully, 

Geraldine: E. Jewsbdut. 

LETTER 304. 

In pencil, with the left hand, and already well done.— T. C. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., The Gill. 

Streatham: .Monday, June 12, 1865. 

Dearest, — I will write before returning home. There will be 
neither peace nor time there. Thanks! I never needed more to he 
made much of. I must tell you about my hand: you think the 
swelling more important than it is; the two middle fingers were 
much as now for some weeks before you left, but with the thumb 
and forefinger I could still do much; now the forefinger is as 
powerless and pained as the other two; that is all the difference, 
but a conclusive one. for one can do nothing with only a thumb! 
I could sometimes sit down and cry. The pain — the chief pain — 
that which wakes me from my sleep is in the shoulder and fore- 
arm. Even hopeful Dr. Quain does not tell me I shall soon get 
back my hand, only tells me blandly I must learn to write with my 
left; and it was lie who told me to take a black-lead pencil. 
I went to him on Friday by appointment when I had finished the 
antifebrile powders. I think they have quieted me. He gave me 
a bumper of champagne; was kind as kind could be; desired me to 

try the quinine once more; said Dr. B s prescription was an. 

' admirable suggestion, and well worth my trying, but, as it would 
cause me a good deal of pain and feverishness, I had better wait 
till after my journey to Scotland.' He does me real good by his 
kindness. 

Mv visit, here has been a great success, so far as depended on my 
host and hostess; and I am certainly better in my general health for 
all Hie nourishing things they have put into me by day and by 
night. It is a place you might fly to in a bilious crisis. Quiet as 
heaven, when the dog is in the wash-house. 

Bellona (my mare) has given me a fine fright. You would never 
believe she was not safe to be left. It has been the nearest miss of 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



143 



herself and the carriage being all smashed to pieces! She has 
escaped miraculously without scratch. The carriage has not been 
BO fortunate. I am not up to writing the narrative to-day. 
Love to my dear kind Mary. 

Your loving but unfortunate 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 305. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., The Gill. 

Railway Hotel, Carlisle: Saturday, June 17, 1865. 

Here I am! as well as could be expected, after travelling all night, 
choked in dust— an unprotected female with one arm! It is no 
sudden thought striking me! My mind has been made up 
to ' try a change,' ever since my last interview with Dr. Quaiu, 
and to try it with as little delay as possible. But I would not tell 
you I was coming; because it was important that I should travel 
by night; and for you to meet me at Ca. lisle would have necessita- 
ted your 'sleeping there (an impossibility!) or else your starting from 
the 'Gill at an unearthly hour. Kindest not to place you in the di- 
lem ma ! 

Up to the last moment, I schemed about taking the Gill on my 
road to Dumfries and appointing you to meet me. But I was sure 
to be awfully tired, just every atom of strength needed to carry me 
on to Tliornliill without increasing my fatigues by the smallestde- 
mand or by any avoidable 'emotion of the mind.' To stay here 
a couple of hours, and have breakfast and rest; and then on past 
Cummertrees, with shut eyes, to the place of my destination, 
'seemed the wisest course. To this, since my arrival here, has been 
added the sublime idea to throw out a note for you, and a sixpence 
at Cummertrees; as it had suddenly flashed on me that no letter 
from me could reach you by post till Tuesday. So soon as I am 
rested, I will make an appointment with you to meet at Dumfries, if 
you would rather not come on to Holm Hill. 

To think that I shall fly past within a quarter of a mile of you 
presently; and you will have no perception of my nearness! 

Yours ever. 

A kiss to Mary. 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 306. 

The ' Saturday ' in this letter must refer to the visit she proposed 
making us at the Gill. Jamie of Scotsbrig particularly invited. 
Mournfully I ever recollect the day; bright and sunny; Jamie 
punctually there; I confidently expecting. Pool! I had not the 
hast conception of her utter feebleness, and that she was never to 
visit 'The Gill' more! Train passed. I hung about impatiently 
till the gig should return from Cummertrees Station — with her, I 
never doubted. It came with John instead, to say she had been 
obliged to stop at Dumfries, and I must come thither by the next 
train: ' be exact; there will be a two and a half or three hours for 
•us there still.' I went (with John, Jamie regretfully turning 
home). She was so pleasant, beautifully cheerful, and quiet, I en- 
joyed my three hours without misgiving. Fool! fool! — and yet 
there was a strange infinitude of sorrow and pity encircling all 
things and persons for me — her beyond all others, though being 
Teally myself as if crushed flat after such a 'flight ' of twelve or 
thirteen years, latterly on the Owen ' comatose ' terms. I was stu- 
pefied into blindness! The time till her train should come was 
beautiful to me and everybody. Cab came for her, I escorting 
(the rest walked, for it was hardly five minutes off). Train was 
considerably too late. An old and good dumb 'Mr. Turner,' 
whom she recognised and rembered kindly after forty years, was 
brought forward at her desire by brother John. Her talk with 
Turner (by slate and pencil, I writing for her) — ah me! ah me! 
It was on the platform-seat, under an awning; she sat by me; the 
great, red, sinking sun flooding everything: day's last radiance, 
night's first silence. Grand, dumb, and unspeakable is that scene 
now to me. I sat by her in the railway carriage (empty otherwise) 
til the train gave its third signal, and she vanished from my eyes. 
— T. C. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., The Gill. 

Holm Hill: Wednesday, June 38, 1865. 
I cannot make it Friday, dear — at least, could not without rude- 
ness to a nice women who has always been kind to me. I am en- 
gaged to dine with my sort of cousiu, Mrs. Hunter, on Friday, hav- 
ing been invited for Thursday, and asked to have the day changed 
to Friday. And last year, when she had got up a dinner for me, 
I had to send an excuse at the last hour, being too ill. To-morrow 
yen will now be hardly expecting me. So let us say Saturday; if 
that does not suit there will be time to tell me. ' The wine I 
drink?' Oh, my! That it should be come to that. But surely 
you ought not to be without wine, setting aside me. 

Don't be bothering, making plans embracing me. The chief 
good of a holiday for a man is just that he should have shaken off 
home cares — the foremost of these a wife. Consider that, for the 
present summer, you have nothing to do with me, but write me 
nice daily letters, and pay my bills. I came on my own hook, 
and so I will continue, and so I will go! To be living in family in 



some country place is just like no holiday at all, but like living at 
home ' under difficulties.' Shall I ever forget ' the cares of meat ' 
at Auchtertool House ? ' ever forget the maggots generated by the 
sun in loins of mutton on the road from Kirkcaldy, and all the 
other squalid miseries of that time, for which I, as housewife, was 
held responsible, and had my heart broken twenty times a day? 
Well, my worried arm is pain enough for the present, without re- 
calling past griefs. To-day, however, I feel rather easier. And I 
had more and better sleep last night. Thanks to exhaustion! for 
the preceding night I had not closed my eyes at all. 

It is such a pity but I could have a little bodily ease. For I was 
never more disposed to be content with ' things in general.' I could 
really feel 'happy,' if it were not for my arm, and the perfectly 
horrid nights it causes me. 

Jessie Hiddlestone is in Thornhill, awaiting my orders— the most 
promising-looking servant we have had since her mother. I am 
greatly pleased with her, and so glad I had faith in breed and en- 
gaged her. Many were eager to have her. But she was ' prood 
to go back to the family.' ' The family ? ' Where are they ? 

My dear, your observation of handwritings is perfectly amazing. 
You take Geraldiue's writing for mine, Mr. Macmillan's for Geral- 
dine's. And now I send you a charming, witty, grateful little let- 
ter of Madame Veuturi's, with vignette -'of Venturi sawing; and 
you seem to have taken it for Mrs. Paulet's. You could not possi- . 
bly have read the letter, or you could not have made such a mistake; 
so I advise you to read it now, with a key: ' The Gorilla' means 
George Cooke, ' M ' stands for Mazzini, the sawyer Venturi. 

Since you wish to know, I have gone back to sherry. And now 
good-bye till Saturday, unless I hear to the contrary. My left hand 
had taken the cramp, so this is the writing of the housemaid, who 
takes the opportunity to assure you that she means to be a very 
good girl, and try to please you, for the sake of her mother, who 
liked you so well. J- Carlyle. 

[Madame Venturi had been Miss Ashurst, of a well known Lon- 
don parentage. She had (and has) fine faculties, a decidedly artis- 
tic turn, which led her much to Italy, <fec. Venturi was a Tyrolese 
Venetian (ex-Austrian military cadet, and also Garibaldist to the 
bone, consequently in a bad Italian position), who had fallen in 
love at first sight, &c, &c. ; and was now fitting up a modest Eng- 
lish house for wife and self. Within a year he died tragically— as 
will be seen. — T. C] 

LETTER 307. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., The Gill, Annan. 

Nith Bank, Thornhill: Tuesday. 

Dearest, — A regular wet day. No drive possible. Well, the 
image of driving you have just set before my imagination — you 
driving me with Noggs in London — is quite enough for one day. It 
melts the marrow in my bones! Nor is there much relief in turning 
to that other picture — little Mary flying through the air in one of 
his ' explosions ' and breaking her skull! If you were to put an ad- 
vertisement in the newspapers that the horse of Thomas Caryle was 
for sale, there would be competition for the possession of it. 

The housemaid, while combing my hair this morning, fell to tell- 
ing me of 'ever so many young drapers, an' the like,' that of her 
knowledge had ' run frae Thornhill to the station to get a bare look 
o' Mr. Carlyle! And when Mr. Morrison' (the minister of Durris- 
deer) ' cam' to his dinner yesterday, the first word oot o' his heed, 
on the very door-steps, was: "Is Mrs. Carlyle still here?" He 
never asket for Mrs. Ewart or the ither ladies, but only for you, 
mem!' I endeavoured to inform her mind by telling her, 'Yes; 
people liked to see any lady much spoken of, whether for good or 
ill. If Dr. Pritchard 3 had been at the station, all Thornhill together 
would have run to see him.' ' Oddsake! ' said the girl, ' I daresay 
they would; I daresay ye're richt; but I never thocht o' that 
afore.' 

Geraldine writes that never was such ' emotion ' excited by a 
speech as by this of Mill's. ' Public Opinion ' came addressed to 
you at Nith Bank in Mrs. Warren's 4 hand. How she came to know 
the name Nith Bank I am puzzled to know. 

I took the quinine and iron yesterday twice, and slept rather 
sounder than otherwise. But I had a badish headache all morning. 
Nevertheless I took another dose before breakfast, as Dr. Russell 
had ordered, and the headache is wearing off. 

I adhere to the intention of Dumfries for Friday, if it suit you 
and Mary. Affectionately, 

Jane. 
LETTER 308. 

Monday, July 24. — Early in the forenoon I was waiting at Dum- 
fries for her train Londonward; got into her carriage (empty other- 
wise), and sate talking and encouraging as I could to Annan (which 
would hardly be an hour). Servant Jessie was in the same train; 
also Jamie Aitken. junior, for Liverpool. I felt in secret extremely 
miserable; agitated she, no doubt, and even terrified, but resolute 
— and the lid shut down. I little thought it would be her last rail- 
way, journey. — T. C. 



' In 1859: ' Cares of bread.'— Mazzini's phrase. 

2 Maid's writing begins. 

3 Glasgow prisoner in those weeks. 



* Servant here. 



144 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



T. Carlyle, Esq. 
5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Thursday, July 27, 1865. 

All goes well still, dearest, and this time nothing serious is man- 
quing. The second night, as I expected, I slept ' beautiful.' Three 
hours without a break, to begin with. When I woke from that, I 
not only didn't know where I was, but didn't know who I was! As 
I got out of bed (by force of habit) to look at my watch, I was say- 
ing to myself, ' It can't be me that has made this fine sleep. It must 
be somebody else.' It was a full minute, I am sure, before I could 
satisfy myself that I hadn't been changed into somebody else. 
Then I slept piecemeal till seven o'clock, when I was startled erect 
by what seemed the house falling. Jessie came at my call, looking 
very guilty, and explained that it was she, who had been coming 
downstairs very softly, for fear of waking me, and, having new 
shoes on, had ' slid and sossed down on her back,' just opposite my 
bed-head. Luckily she was none the worse for the fall. A greater 
contrast than that young woman is to Fanny cannot be figured. So 
quick, so willing, so intelligent; never needs to be told a thing 
twice; and so warmly human! My only fear about her is that she 
will be married-up away from me. Mrs. Warren calls her ' my 
dear,' and they get on charmingly together. 

The person who addressed the newspaper to you at ' Coming 
Trees' was Fanny, who had called to ask if I would 'see a lady' 
for her, and Mrs. Warren being busy asked her to address the news- 
paper. 

On Tuesday Bellona, who had been warned a week before, came 
round at one; and after some shopping I called at Grosvenor 
Street, and found Miss Bromley at home — a satisfaction which I 
owed to the youngest of the three pugs, ' Jocky,' who was 'suffer- 
ing from the heat.' She was delighted to see me; most anxious 
I should come to her at Folkestone; and told me, to my great joy, 
that Lady A. had not started on the 21st; wasn't going till Thurs- 
day (to-day); was staying at Bath House, but gone that morning to 
Bath for one day. I left a card and message at Bath House on the 
road home. Yesterday (Wednesday) I drove to Bath House, the 
first thing when I went out at one, and found the lady looking 
lovely in a spruce little half-mourning bonnet; and she would, 'if 
it was within the bounds of possibility,' come to me in the evening 
'between ten and eleven; ' and I went in her carriage with her (my 
own following) to Norfolk Street (Mrs. Anstruther's) to see baby, 
who is going with her mother to Germany after all. I left her 
there, and got into my own carriage, and went and bought my 
birthday present with the sovereign — at least, I paid out fifteen 
shillings of it. On what? My dear, the thing I bought was most 
appropriate, and rather touching. I drove to the great shop in Con 
duit Street, where the world is supplied with 'trusses,' 'laced 
stockings,' and mechanical appliances for every species of human 
derangement, and bought a dainty little sling for my arm. The 
mere ribbon round my neck hurt my neck, and drew my head 
down. This fastens across the back, and is altogether a superior 
contrivance. I don't believe in Dr. Russell's prediction any more 
than you do. At all rates, there was no call on him to state so 
hopeless a view of the question when I was not asking his opinion 
at all. It could do no harm to leave me the consolation of hope. 
But I will hope in spite of him. Indeed, it seems to me that ever 
since he said i should never get the use of my hand, nor get rid of 
the pain there, that a spirit of protest and opposition has animated 
the poor hand, and set it on trying to do things it had for some 
time ceased from doing. 

Lady A. did come last night — came at half after eleven, and 
stayed till near one! Mrs. Anstruther was left sitting in the car- 
riage, and sent up to say ' it was on the stroke of twelve ; ' and then, 
with Lady A.'s permission, I invited her up; and if it hadn't been 
for her I don't think Lady A. would have gone till daylight! She 
said in going, 'My regards — my — what shall I send to him?' (you). 
'Oh,' I said, ' send him a kiss! ' ' That is just what I should like,' 
she said; ' but would he not think it forward? ' ' Oh, dear, not at 
all ! ' I said. So you are to consider yourself kissed. I am going 
up to Bath House now. She goes at night. 

Lady Stanley writes to ask how I am, and to beg that you will 
come that way. 

• What a long letter! I ought to have said that all this did not 
give me a bad night. Of course I did not sleep as on the preced- 
ing night, but better than I ever did at Holm Hill; and the pain in 
my arm is really less since I came home. 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 309. 

2\ Carlyle, Esq. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Sunday, July 30, 1865. 
I will write to-night, dearest, while the way is open to me. 
To-morrow I shall be busy from the lime I get up till Bellona, 
comes for me; and after driving there is no time" as 1 take the three 
hours at least every day. It is such ' a privilege ' (as Maria's mother 
would say) to have a carriage and a Bellona" all to oneself.' inde- 
pendent of all agricultural operations. I don't feel it too warm 
a bit when I haven't to walk on the hot pavement, though they arc 
celebrating the thermometer at 85" in the shade. But anyhow Miss 



Bromley is irresistibly pressing; and I have promised to go to her 
about the twelfth, whether my work here is done or not. She will 
write to you, to urge your joining me, which you will do — won't 
you? — if I, on surveying the premises, can promise you a tolerably 
quiet bedroom. Of course I shall take Jessie, as I can't put my 
clothes off and on yet without help. I think of staying about a 
fortnight. 

I am sorry you gave up the sailing and Thurso. Sailing agrees 
with you, and you had good sleep at Thurso. 'The good, [the 
beautiful, and the true' came last evening, to inquire how I was 
after my journey, and to tell me, who knew nothing and cared less, 
how he had written letters of introduction for Dr. Carlyle, and sent 
them to the captain of some steamer, &c. &c, and how his wife 
had set her heart on having a lock of your hair and mine set in a 
brooch, and he had promised her to try and complete her wishes. 
And it ended — for happily everything does end — in his begging and 
receiving the last pen you used, to be kept under a glass case. 
I have seldom seen a foolisher hero-worshipper. But the greatest 
testimony to your fame seems to me to be the fact of my photograph 
— the whole three, two of them very ugly (Watkins's) — stuck up in 
Macmichael's shop-window. Did you ever hear anything so pre- 
posterous in your life? And what impertinence on the part of Wat- 
kins! He must have sent my three along with your nine to the 
wholesale man in Soho Square, without leave asked. But it proves 
the interest or curiosity you excite; for being neither a 'distin- 
guished authoress,' nor 'a celebrated murderess,' nor an actress, 
nor a ' Skittles ' (the four classes of women promoted to the shop- 
windows), it can only be as Mrs. Carlyle that they offer me for sale. 

I continue to sleep on the improved principle, and my arm con- 
tinues less painful, and my hand, if not more capable, is at least 
more venturesome. 

I saw Dr. Quain on Saturday, and he 'approved highly of my 
present course of treatment — that is, taking neither quinine nor 
anj'thiug else.' I told him what Dr. Russell had said, and his an- 
swer was, ' How could he know? That is what nobody could say 
but God Almighty.' 

I drove to Streatham Lane to-day, and saw the Macmillans; also 
Mr. and Mrs. George Craik. 1 Mr. Macmillan is greatly delighted 
with him as a junior partner. They did not look at all ill-matched. 
His physical sufferings have made up in looks the ten years of dif- 
ference. He has got an excellent imitation leg, and walks on it 
much better than American James. 

God keep you. Your affectionate 

Jane. 

LETTER 310. 
Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill. 

5 Cheyne Row: Aug. 7, 1865. 
Dearest, — Just a line to say that all goes well with my health. I 
continue to sleep better — almost to sleep well; and the pain is 
greatly gone out of my arm, and I use my hand a little; this charm- 
ing penmanship is from my right hand. 

But I have no time for elaborate writing. I was never busier in 
my life; about three thousand volumes have had to pass through 
my hands, and be arranged on the shelves by myself; nobody else 
could help me. The new room is getting finished, and will strike 
Mr. C. dumb with admiration when he comes. 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 311. 

Brother John and I, as I now recollect, were in and about Edin- 
burgh, Stowe, Newbattle (I solus for a call); then Linlathen both, 
for some days; whence to Sterling of Keir (dreary rail journey, 
dreary all, though in itself beautiful and kind); thence to Edin- 
burgh (John's bad lodging there, &c), after which back to Dum- 
friesshire — to Scotsbrig, 1 suppose. Before this 1 had been three 
days at Keswick with my valued old friend, T. Spedding; walked 
to Bassenthwaite Has. (Seen five-aud-forty years ago and not 
recognisable!) Nothing could exceed ray private weariness, sad- 
ness, misery, and depression. Little thought it was, within few 
months, to be all sharpened into poignancy and tenderesl woe. and 
remain with me in that far exceeding if somewhat uoMer form. 
-T. C. 

T. Carlyle, Esq. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Friday, Aug. 12, 1865. 

Dearest, — It all came- of you being moving, and me silting still! 
I didn't know exactly when and where a letter would find you, and 
was occupied enough to avail myself of the shabby excuse for 
spending no time in writing. Besides, the time is always much 
longer for the person on his travels than for the one at home. And 
your right address did not reach me in time for that day's post. It 
came to hand at tea-time, as did yesterday's newspaper. So I could 
only answer at night to be ready'for the post of yesterday. To-day 
I send a line or two, remembering that Sunday you can get noth- 
ing. 

Jessie and I are alone just now, Mrs. Warren having petitioned 

1 Miss Mulock once, now a current authoress of John Halifax, &c. &c. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



145 



for ' her holiday.' No age exempts people here from the appetite 
for holidays. She left on Wednesday afternoon, and does not re- 
turn till Sunday, in time to see me off on Monday. As that new 
journey comes near, I shudder at it considerably. ' Stava bene/' 

If you cannot be at the trouble to go out to Betty's, do send her 
a line, telling wher*e and when she can come to you. She will read 
in the newspapers that you are in Edinburgh, and break her 
poor old heart over it if she gets no sight of you. 1 She has al- 
ready had one bad disappointment in not seeing me when I was so 
near. 

We had a great thunderstorm last evening, and the air to-day is 
delightfully fresh. I had poor little Madame Reichenbach at tea 
with me, and her husband came late to take her home; and the 
thunder burst, and the rain fell; and the lamp was burning dim; 
and the dingy little countess from time to time made little moaning 
speeches in English — unintelligible, 'upon my honour!' — and 
Reichenbach, as usual, sat with crossed arms, and knitted brows, 
silent as the tombs! And to let them walk home in such pouring 
wet seemed too cruel; and they had no shilling to take a cab; and 
I would gladly have paid a cab for them, but, of course, dared not! 
And, 'altogether, the situation was rather exquisite!' 2 

And now I must conclude, and prepare for Bellona. That poor 
beast behaves quite well at present. Of course, old Silvester never 
quits the box. I couldn't have the heart to complain about his 
having grown old. 

I will send my address — or stop! 'Tuesday next!' — perhaps 
better send it now: 

" Care of Miss Davenport Bromley, 

'4Langhorne Gardens, West Cliff, Folkestone.' 
Yours lovingly, 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 312. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., Scotsbrig. 

Folkestone: Saturday, Aug. 19, 1865. 
Dearest, — It will be surest to direct to Scotsbrig; one might 
easily fad of hitting you on the wing at Edinburgh! But I wish 
you could have brought yourself to go for a few days to the Lothi- 
ans: 3 their patience and perseverance in asking you deserved a 
visit! And it is rather perverse, this sudden haste to get home 
while I am not there to receive you! Don't you think it is? For 
your own sake, however, I do entreat you to break the long jour- 
ney by either stopping at Alderley, or making out that visit to 
Foxton. 4 Alderley, which you know, and are sure of a fine quiet 
bedroom at, would be best. It is such a pity to arrive at home en- 
tirely fevered, and knocked up with that journey, as always hap- 
pens; and then you take it to be 'London' that is making you ill! 
Then, if you stayed a few days at Alderley, I could stay out the 
fortnight I undertook for here, and be home in time to give you 
welcome. I should go home on Monday week (Monday, 28th) in 
the course of nature. I suppose this place is good for me; I have 
slept so much — more than in any other week for the last three 
years! But I don't feel stronger for all this sleep, nor more able to 
«at, or to walk. One day that I tried walking, about as far as 
from Cheyne Row to the hospital, I had to come home ignomini- 
ously in a donkey-cart. But the drives don't tire me, especially 
since Miss Bromley has had her own carriage and horses sent down. 
Nor need there be any reflections for want of ' simmering stagna- 
tion!' There is not a human creature to speak to out of our own 
house; and in it the pugs have the greatest share of the conversa- 
tion to themselves! 
I cannot forgive Thomas Erskine for taking up and keeping up 

-with such a woman as that Mrs. . Letting you be driven out 

Dy Mrs. ■ ! 

lam so glad you went to see dear Betty; it will be something 
good for her to think of for a year to come! 

Do write distinctly the when, and the how, of your home-com- 
ing. What do you think? I have exactty two sovereigns in the 
world! enough to pay the servants here, and my railway fare homes 
and no more! ! Yet I have not been extravagant that I am aware 
of. I had to pay Silvester before I went to Scotland sixteen pound, 
eleven shillings and four pence; and to ditto after my return five 
pounds seventeen shillings. And Freure 5 couldn't get on without 
' something towards the work;' and I paid him ten pounds. 

£ s. 0. 

16 11 4 

10 

5 17 



32 8 4 



making up in all one half of my house-money. Then your being 
away makes no difference in the rent, taxes, servants' wages, keep, 



1 I did go.. 

'' ' Pang which was exquisite.' Foolish phrase of Godwin's in his Life of 
Mary Wollstonecraft. 

3 To Newbattle, where I spent a day. 

< Frederic, my old German fellow-tourist: his cottage ' near Rhayader ' was 
of route too intricate for me. 

5 The Chelsea carpenter. 



&c. And for my being away myself, I certainly have to pay to 
other people's servants more than it would cost me for individual 
' living's cares ! ' 

1 had indeed, besides the house-money, my own fifteen pounds, 
of which the two sovereigns above mentioned are the sad remains. 
But, when these pounds came to hand, I owed for my summer 
bonnet and cloak; and I had some little presents to buy to take 
with me to Scotland, besides a gown for myself. The only part of 
my own money I can be said to have spent needlessly was a guinea 
and a half for — you would never guess what! — for a miniature of 
you!! Such a beauty! Everyone who sees it screams with rap- 
ture over it — even Ruskin ! 

But my hand will do no more. 

Miss Bromley bids me say, ' that fourfooted animal sends his re- 
spects ' (' and put that in inverted commas, please! '). She is good 
as possible to me. 

Yours lovingly, 
v Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 313. 

Mrs. Russell, Holm IEtt. 
4 Langhorne Gardens, Folkestone: Aug. 23, 1865. 

I am going to make an attempt at putting on paper the letter that 
has been in my head for you, dear, ever since I came to this place. 
I had even begun to write it two or three days ago, when at the 
first words my conscience gave me a smart box on the ear, remind- 
ing me that I hadn't written one word to Mrs. Ewart since I left 
her. after all her kindness to me, whereas to you I had written once 
and again ; so my pen formed, quite unexpectedly for myself, the 
words ' Dear Mrs. Ewart,' instead of ' Dearest Mary.' To be sure 
there have been leisure hours enough since. Life here is made up 
of 'leisure hours'; but just the less one does, as I long ago ob- 
served, the less one can find time to do. I get up at nine, and it 
takes me a whole mortal hour to dress, without assistance. At ten 
we sit down to breakfast, and talk over it till eleven. Then I have 
to write my letter to Mr. Carlyle; then I make a feeble attempt at 
walking on the cliff by the shore, which never fails to weary me 
dreadfully, so that I can do nothing after, till the first dinner (called 
luncheon), which comes off at two o'clock; then between three and 
four we go out for a drive in an open barouche, with a pair of 
swift horses, and explore the country for three or four hours. On 
coming home we have a cup of tea, then rest, and dress for the 
second dinner at eight (nominally, but in reality half-past eight). 
At eleven we go to bed, very sleep)' generally with so much open 
air. There is not a soul to speak to from without. But Miss 
Bromley and I never bore one another: when we find nothing of 
mutual interest to talk about, we have the gift, both of us, of being 
able to sit silent together without the least embarrassment. She is 
adorably kind to me, that 'fine lad}'! ' and in such an unconscious 
way, always looking and talking as if it were I that was kind to. 
her, and she the one benefited b}' our intimacy. And then she 
has something in her face, and movements, aDd ways, that always 
reminds me of my mother at her age. 

I am sorry that Mr. Carlyle, after all his objections to my return- 
ing to Loudon in August, should have taken it in his head to return 
toLondon in August himself. I find it so pleasant here; and am 
sleeping so wonderfully, that I feel no disposition to go back to Chel- 
sea already; Miss Bromley having taken her house for five weeks, 
and being heartily desirous that I should stay and keep her com- 
pany. But a demon of impatience seems to have taken possession 
of Mr. O, and he has been rushing through his promised visits as if 
the furies were chasing him. Everything right, seemingly, wherever 
he went; the people all kindness "for him; the bedrooms quiet and 
airy; horses and carriages at his command; and, behold, it was im- 
possible to persuade him to stay longer than three days with Mr. 
Erskine, of Linlathen; ditto with Stirling, of Ke-ir; and just three 
hours (for luncheon") at Newbattle with the Lothiaus; and by this 
time he is back at Scotsbrig (if ail have gone right), to stay 'one 
day or at most two.' preparatory for starting for Chelsea. It is 
really so unreasonable, this sudden haste — after so much dawdling 
—that I do not feel it my duty to rush home ' promiscuously ' to 
receive him. I promised to stay here a fortnight at the least, and 
the fortnight does not complete itself till Monday next; so I have 
written to him that I will be home on Monday — not sooner — and 
begging him to break the journey, and amuse himself for a couple 
of days at Alderley Park, and then he would find me at home to re- 
ceive him; since he won't do as Miss Bromley and I wish — come 
here for a little sea-bathing to finish off with. 

It really is miraculous how soundly I have slept here, though I 
take two glasses of champagne, besides Manzanilla, every day at the 
late dinner. It couldn't have been sound, that champagne of poor, 

kind Mrs. 's, or it wouldn't have so disagreed with me. Here 

it always does me good. And the pain is entirely gone out of my 
arm; I can't move it any better yet, but that is small matter in 
comparison. I can do many things with my hand: write (as you 
see) — knit — I have knitted myself a pair of garters — I can play on 
the piano a little, and do a few stitches with a very coarse needle. 

Kindest love to the Doctor. 

Your ever affectionate 

Jane Carlyle. 



146 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



LETTER 314. 
To Miss Welsh, Edinburgh. 

5 Cheyne Row: Monday, Oct. 1865. 

My dear Elizabeth, — I am very glad indeed of the photograph, 
and grateful to you for having had it done at last, knowing how 
all such little operations bore you. It it very satisfactory as a por- 
trait too — very like and a pleasant likeness — ' handsome and lady- 
like ' (the epithets that used to be bestowed on you in old times). 
Photography is apt to lie cruel on women out of their teens; but 
this oue is neither old-looking nor cross looking. So thank you 
again with all my heart. 

We have had a severe time of it with heat since our return to 
London. Plenty of people found it 'delicious,' but Mr. C. and 1 
— and, indeed, the whole household, not excepting the cat — suffered 
in our stomachs, and even more in our tempers. It was quite curi- 
ous to hear the cat squabbling with her cat companions in the gar- 
den-!— just as the cook and housemaid squabbled in the kitchen, or 
Mr C. and I in the 'up stairs;' a general overflow of bile produc- 
ing the usual results of irritability and disagreement. Now the 
weather is again favourable to the growth of the domestic virtues, 
and also, sail to say, to the development of rheumatism. 

1 paid a visit the other day, which interested me, to ' Queen Era- 
ma.' She is still in the house of Lady Franklin (the widow of that 
'Sir John' that everybody used to sail away to 'seek'). When 
Lady Franklin made a journey to the Sandwich Islands, amongst 
other out-of-the-way places, she was received with great kindness 
by the 'royal family,' and is now repaying it by having 'the 
Queen' and her retinue to live with her; though our Queen 
has placed her apartments at Clarges' Hotel at the Sandwich 
Island Queen's disposition. We (Geraldiue Jewsbury and I) 
were taken by Lady Franklin into the garden where the 
Queen was sitting writing, and 'much scandalized to receive us 
in a little hat, instead of her widow's cap.' which she offered to 
go in and put on. She is a charming young woman, in spite of 
the tinge of black — or rather green. Large black, beautiful 
eyes, a lovely smile, great intelligence, both of face and man- 
ner, a musical, true voice, a perfect English accent. Lady 
Franklin introduced me as 'the wife of Mr. Carlyle, a celebrated 
author of our country.' ' 1 know him, I have read all about him, 
and read things he has written,' answered the Queen of the Sand- 
wich Islands! In fact, the young woman seemed remarkably in- 
formed on ' things in general.' The funniest part of the interview, 
for me, was to lear Geraldiue addressing Queen Emma always as 
'Your Majesty,' in a tone as free and easy as one would have 
adopted to one's cat 

Do you remember Joseph Turner who was deaf and dumb? I 
saw him on the platform at Dumfries and spoke to him, and be has 
written to me— such a nice letter. I will send it when I have 
answered it. I cannot conceive how he should have known my 
father, he was too young. 

I hope Ann has gone or is going to Dumfriesshire. It always 
does her good, that trip; and many people- are glad of her coming. 
I saw her old friend Mrs. Gilchrist at Thornhill. How changed 
from the time she helped me to make woollen mattresses at C'raig- 
euputtock! The history she gave me of her accideuts was most 
pitiful. I didn't like the daughter's looks much; but she had the 
room as clean as a pin? and spoke kindly enough, though roughly, 
to her mother. 

Good-bye, dear Elizabeth! 

Yours affectionately, 

Jane W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 315. 
To Mrs. Austin. The QUI, Annan. 

5 Cheyne Row: Wednesday, Oct. 11, 1865. 
My dear little woman,— It is ' a black and a burning shame ' that 
I should not have told you before now that the butter is good, very 
good! And Mr. C. eats it to his oat-cakes in preference to the Ad- 
discombe fresh butter, which is the best in the world. The girl — 
or I should say young woman (her age being thirty)— whom I 
brought from Thornhill is an admirable~liand at oat-cakes, and is 
fond of being praised, as most of us are when we can get it! so is 
willing to do the cake-making of the family, though it isn't 'iuher 
work.' And I seldom eat loaf-bread now, having taken it into my 
head that the out-cakes do instead of rhubarb pills. Sin- is a capital 
servant, that Jessie; and pleases Mr, Carlyle supremely, attending 
to all his little ' fykes and manoeuvres' (as she calls it in her private 
mind) with a zeal and punctuality that leaves him nothing to wish. 
But to me she leaves a good deal' to wish. Not in her work: she is 
clever and active, and lias an excellent memory; but, as a woman, 
I might wish her different in some respects. With a face that cap- 
tivates everyone by its ' brightness and sweetness,' she is, I find, 
what the clergyman at Morion, who had known her from a child, 
told me she was, and I would not believe him till I tried, 'a — vixen. 
And when Mrs. Russell told me. she was — 'Oh, well, about that, I 
should say she was as truthful as the generality of servants nowa- 
days!' even that mild account was stretching a point in her favour. 
But as long as Mr. C. finds her all right, the rest don't signify. He 
has been off his sleep again, listening for ' railway whistles,' which 



have been just audible — nothing more — for years back; but he never 
discovered them till his experiences at Dumfries made him morbidly 
sensitive to that sound. The last week he has slept better; and in 
other respects he is better, I think, than before he went to Scotland; 
can walk further, 'and looks stronger. 

For me, my neuralgia continues in abeyance — no pain in my arm, 
or hand, or anywhere. And though a certain stiffness remains, I 
can do myself, without help, almost everything I need'to do, and 
some things not needed. For example, I made myself yesterday a 
lovely bonnet! My sleep has been greatly improved ever since my 
return from Scotland; for the bad nights I have had lately were 
not my own fault, but produced by listening to Mr. C. jumping up 
to smoke, to thump at bis bed, and so on. 1 

God bless you dear. Kind regards to them all. 

Your affectionate 

Jake W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 316. 

Some wretched people who had settled next door had brought 
poultry and other base disturbances; against which, for my sake, 
the noble soul heroically started up (not to be forbidden), and with 
all her old skill and energy gained victory, complete once more. 
For me — for me! and it was her last. The thought is cuttingly 
painful while I live. 

The omnibus at Charing Cross. Oh, shocking! How well do I 
remember all this, and how easily might I have avoided it!— T. C. 

To Mrs. Austin. The Gill. Annan. 

5 Cheyne Row: Wednesday, Dec. 1865. 

Oh, my dear! I am so vexed that you should not have had your 
kind sending acknowledged sooner. It arrived when I was under 
a cloud, last Saturday, confined to bed in a perfect agony of sick 
headache! 

I had had nothing of that, sort for many years, and it was really 
strange to me, the thought, how many such days I had passed for- 
merly without being killed by them! But I am sure" I couldn't live 
through many such at the present date. The headache and sick- 
ness lasted onty one day and night, but the effects of it have not yet 
passed. I am as weak and nervous as if I had just come through a 
course of mercury ! And that is why I have let several posts pass 
without returning you our thanks; but expressing them meanwhile 
in an approving consumptiou of the eggs and fowls. One was 
boiled on Monday (excellent!), the other is to be roasted to-day, 
according to my views about variety of food being requisite to the 
welfare of the human stomach — a consideration which Mr. C. 
makes light of, but exemplifies in his own person very convincingly 
the truth of. 

I could very well account for that crisis the other day; several 
things had conspired to throw me on my back. First, my black 
mare, who enjoj's the most perfect health generally, got her foot 
hurt by a runaway cart, and has bad to remain in the stable for 
more than a week, in a state of continual poultices! Not choosing 
to pay for another horse, I agreed to go for exercise in an omnibus 
with Mr. C. — the first timel had entered an omnibus since the 
evening I had my fall — the beginning of all my woes! I felt very 
nervous at the notion, but I was to go to the end of the line and sit 
still while the horses were changed, and then come back again, so 
as to avoid any walking or hanging about in the streets. But Mr. 
O, as usual dawdled till we found ourselves too late for going the 
whole way, aud 1 bad to get down at Charing Cross in a busy 
thoroughfare — aud Mr. C. had to run after omnibuses to stop them 
— and I was like to cry with nervousness to find myself left alone 
in an opeu street — and couldn't run after him as he kept calling to 
me to do — couldn't run at all! aud was besides paralysed at the 
sight of carriages so near me, so that I was terribly flurried, and 
felt quite ill w lien I had to go out to dinner with Mr. C. the Same 
evening. Then I am sure the champagne they gave us was bad — 
that is, poisonous; and for two nights before, I had had next to no 
sleep, owing to a terrible secret on my mind. One morning, when 
I looked out of my dressing-room window to see what sort of day 
it was, imagine the spectacle that met my eyes: a rubbishy hen- 
hutch, erected 6ver night, in the garden next to ours— next! think 
of that! — and nine large hens and one very large cock sauntering 
under our windows! ! ! I should have fainted where I stood had I 
been in the habit of fainting; but that I never .was. As Mr. C. 
said nothing, I could not guess whether he had made the discovery 
or not. The crowing winch occurred several times during the 
night, as well as abundantly in the morning, certainly did not awake 
him, his mind being, at present, intent on 'railway whistles.' But 
when he should have once opened his eyes to the thing, and as the 
days should lengthen, the crowing would increase. Ah ! my 
heaven, what then? — no wonder that I lay awake thinking ' What 
then?' I have not time to give a detailed account of all that fol- 
lowed. Enough to say the poultry is all to evacuate the premises 
at Christmas, and meauwhile the cock is shut up in a dark cellar 
from darkening till after our breakfast. And Mr. C. clasped me in 
his arms and called me his ' guardian angel; ' and all I have to pay 
for this restoration of peace and quietness is giving a lesson three 



Alas, alas; watchful for twol How sad, sad that now is to met 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OP JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



147 



times a week, in syllables of two letters, to a small Irish boy! 
Rhyme that if you can! 

Excuse this ill-written letter. I am not quite recovered from the 
crush of that poultry affair on my mind, although the secret load is 
removed. 

I will write soon when more up to writing. This is merely 
thanks and a kiss for 5 the fowls and eggs. Oh, if one never saw a 
fowl but like these — dead! 

Love to them all. Your ever affectionate 

Jane W. Carlyle. 

Jessie, the Thornhill girl, is going on quite satisfactorily, since I 
ceased treating her too "kindly— snubbing, and riding with a curb- 
bridle, is what she needs. All her former mistresses warned me of 
that, but I wouldn't believe them, the girl looked so sweet and af- 
fectionate — the humbug! Mercifully, Mr. C. sees no fault in her. 
[Remainder, a small fragment, is lost.} 

LETTER 317. 

Nothing nobler was ever done to me in my life than the unseen 
nobleness recorded in this letter. When I look out on that garden, 
all so trim and quiet now (old rubbish tenants gone forever), and 
think what she looked out on, and resolved to do — oh, these are 
facts that go beyond words! Praise to thee, darling! praise in my 
heart at least, so long as I continue to exist. — T. C. 

Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill. 

5 Cheyne Row: Dec. 25, 1865. 
Dearest Mary, — I was unwilling -to leave your husband's letter 
unanswered for a single day, or I wouldn't have chosen Friday 
morning for writing to him," when I was busy packing your box, 
and had besides to write a business letter to the Haddington lawyer, 1 
and to give a lesson in syllables of two letters to a small boy,' 2 all 
before one o'clock, when I should go for my drive. After my re- 
turn, between four and five, there is no time to catch the general 
post, which closes for Chelsea at half-past four. So, having so 
much to do in haste, I could only do it all badly. 

Then you may be perplexed by the four pieces of cork. My dear, 
Mr. Carlyle has admirers of all sorts and trades; and one of them, 
a very ardent admirer, is by trade a cork-cutter, and he sent me, as 
a tribute of admiration, a box containing some dozens of bottle- 
corks, large and small, and half-a-dozen pairs of cork soles, to put 
into my slioes, when shaped with a sharp knife. It is not by many, 
or auy, chances that I have to wet my feet; so there is small gen- 
erosity in bestowing two pairs on you or the Doctor. 

I hope you read that tale going on in the 'Fortnightly' — 'The 
Belton Estate ' (by Anthony Trollope). It is charming, like all 
he writes; I quite weary for the next number, for the sake of that 
one thing; the rest is wonderfully stupid. 

When I wrote to the Doctor, 'my interior '(as Mr. C. would 
say) was iu wild agitation, not severe but annoying, and reminding 
me of the inflamiuatory attack I had last winter. Nevertheless, I 
took my daily three hours' drive, and some tea after, and put on 
my black velvet gown, and went to -'Lady William's' 3 eight 
o'clock dinner. I hadn't dined with her for some three weeks, so I 
must be getting better when I could muster spirit for such a thing. 
Rolled up in fur, and both windows up, and warm water to my 
feet, I caught no cold, and it is always pleasant there, and I always 
sleep well after. I met the man who is said to have made the 
Crimean War, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, and found him a most 
just-looking, courteous, agreeable, white-headed, old gentleman. 

When I told you I had been off my sleep, I told you — did I not? 
— that I had been worried off it. Better when one can put one's 
finger on the cause of one's sleeplessness. The cause this time, or 
rather the causes, were: first, a bilious fit on the part of Mr. Car- 
lyle, who was for some days ' neither to hold nor to bind ' — a con- 
dition which keeps my heart jumping into my mouth when it 
should be composing itself to rest. Then it happened that in these 
nervous days I had Agnes Veitch, my old Haddington playmate 
(Mrs. Grabame) coming to dinner, and seeing that he hail made up 
his miud to find her dreadfully in his way, I ordered my brougham 
at eight o'clock to take her home to St. John's Wood, and that she 
mightn't think it was sending her off too early, I went along with 
Jier, to give her another hour of my company. Prettily imagined, 
you will allow. Having deposited her safely at her own door, I 
was on my way back, crossing Oxford Street, when I saw a mad 
or drunk cart bearing down upon me at a furious rate, and swerv- 
ing from side to side, so that there was no escaping. My old 
coachman is a most cautious, as well as skilful driver; but this was 
too much. I shut my eyes, and crossed my arms tight, and awaited 
the collision. Instea'd of, as I expected, running into the carriage, 
the wild thing ran into the black mare, threw her round with a jerk 
that broke part of the harness, and then rushed on. Men gathered 
round, and Silvester descended from his box, tc knot up the broken 

1 About some trifle of legacy from poor ' Jackie Welsh,' I think (supra). 
a Part of her task with those new neighbours, and their noises and paltri- 
nesses. Good Heaven 1 
1 Lady William Russell, who much liked and admired her. 



straps; my beautiful Bellona (so named for her imputed warlike 
disposition) standing the while as quiet as a lamb. Then we went 
on our way again, thanking God it was no worse. But it was 
found, on reaching the stables, that poor Bellona had got her foot 
badly hurt. The mad wheel seemed to have bruised it and snip- 
ped out a piece of skin. She was not at all lame, and was quite 
willing to go out with me next day; but the next again, her leg was 
much swelled, and for more than a fortnight she had to be attended 
by the veterinary surgeon, who forbade her going out. and said if 
the bruise had been an inch nearer the hoof she would have been a 
ruined Bellona. Also, he said, ' a more sweet-natured horse he had 
neved handled!' After much poulticing, the inward suppuration 
came outward; and she is now all right, being of an admirable 
constitution, this one; never, even through the poulticing time, 
losing her excellent appetite and excellent spirits. But it was 
worrying to not know when she could be taken out, and mean- 
while to be putting Mr. C. to the cost of a livery-horse as well. 

But the grand worry of all. that which perfected my sleepless- 
ness, was an importation of nine hens, and a magnificent cock, into 
the adjoining garden! For years back there has reigned overall 
these gardens a heavenly quiet — thanks to my heroic exertions in 
exterminating nuisances of every description. But I no longer felt 
the hope or the energy in me requisite for such achievements. 
Figure then my horror, my despair, on being waked one dark 
morning with the crowing of a cock, that seemed to issue from 
under my bed! I leapt up, and rushed up to my dressing-room 
window, but it was still all darkness. I lay with my heart in my 
mouth, listening to the cock crowing hoarsely from time to time, 
and listening for Mr. C's foot stamping frantically, as of old, on 
the floor above. But, strangely enough, he gave no sign of having 
heard his enemy, his whole attentions having been, ever since his 
visit to Mrs. Aitken, morbidly devoted to— railway whistles. So 
soon as it was daylight I looked out again, and there was a sight to 
see — a ragged, Irish looking hen-house, run up over night, and 
sauntering to and fro nine goodly hens, and a stunning cock! I 
didn't know whether Mr. C. remained really deaf as well as blind 
to these new neighbours, or whether he was only magnanimously 
resolved to observe silence about them ; but it is a fact, that for a 
whole week he said no word to enlighten me, while I expected and 
expected the crisis which would surely come, and shuddered at 
every cock-crow, and counted the number of times he crowed in a 
night — at two! at three! at four! at five! at six! at sevenl Oh, 
terribly at seven! 

For a whole week I bore my hideous secret in my breast, and 
slept ' none to speak of.' At the week's end I fell into one of my 
old sick headaches. I used always to find a sick headache had a 
fine effect in clearing the wits. So, even this time, I rose from a 
day's agony with a scheme of operation in my head, and a sense of 
ability to 'carry it out,' It would be too long to go into details— 
enough to say my negotiations with 'next door' ended in an agree- 
ment that the cock should be shut up in the cellar, inside the 
owner's own house, from three in the afternoon till ten in the 
morning; and, in return. I give the small boy of the house a lesson 
every morning in his 'Reading made Easy,' the small boy being 
'too excitable"' for being sent to school 1 It is a house full of 
mysteries— No. 6! I have thoughts of writing a novel about it. 
Meanwhile. Mr. C. declares me to be his 'guardian angel.' No 
sinecure, I can tell him. So I might fall to sleeping again if I 
could. But I couldn't all at once. Getting back to even tl.at 
much sleep I had been haviug must be gradual, like the building 
of Rome. 

Jessie is going on quite well since I decided to take the upper 
hand with her, and keep it. I don't think Mrs. Warren likes her 
any better, but I ask no questions. Best ' let sleeping dogs lie. 
She (Jessie) is much more attentive to me since I showed myself 
quite indifferent to her attentions, and particular only as to the 
performance of her work. She is even kindly and sensitive with 
me occasionally. But she can't come over me ever again with that 
dodge. She let me see too clearly into her hard, vain nature that I 
should place reliance or affection on her again. I do not regret 
having taken her— not at all. As a servant, she is better thin the 
average; as a woman, I do not think ill of her; but I mistook her 
entirely at the first, and see less good in her than perhaps Here is, 
because I beean by seeing far more good in her than she lad the 
least pretension to. At my age, and with my experience, it would 
have well beseemed me to be less romantic. I have paid "or it in 
the disappointment of the heartfelt hopes I had investec' in my 
hereditary housemaid. 
Good-bye, dear! 

Your ever affectionate 

Jane Cailyle. 

LETTER 318. 
Mrs. Russell, Ilolm Bill, Thornhill, Dumfriesshir,. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea : Saturday, De:. 30, 1865. 

Just a line, dearest, to inclose the poor little mone'-order. I 

have no time for a letter— indeed, my hurry is indescri table, for I 

have been fit for nothing this week, and all my New Tsar writing 

is choked into the last day of it. 

Wrap up five shillings, please, and address it to J<hn Hiddle- 



148 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



s 
di 
Bi 

hat 



stone, and give it or transmit it to Margaret, who will save you the 
trouble of seeking out himself. And you remember there was to 
be live shillings to that unlucky Mrs. Gilchrist — into her own baud. 
The other ten shillings please give where you see it most needed. 

A woman who had had something from me through you (an old 
post-woman, Jessie said) came to Jessie, when she was coming 
away, and begged her to tell me that 'she had been sometimes at 
Templand, and had once taken tea with Mrs. Welsh in her own 
parlour, and if I would do something more for her, that being the 
case!' Jessie had properly told her that it was no business of hers 
to interfere, and that she could tell myself. No; I do not recognise 
the claim. Let her have what she has been used to have, and no 
more. She ought to have appealed to me through you, not through 
my prospective servant. 

My sickness and my sleeplessness have culminated in a violent 
cold or influenza. Blue pill, castor oil, morphia — I have not been 
idle, I assure you; and now the evil thing is blowing over, and I 
expect to be able to keep my engagement to dine with Dr. Quain 
on the 3rd of January! 

I hope you got my long letter — that it was not confiscated for the 
sake of the buttons! Will you tell me how you manage to get 
baskets all the way to our door without a farthing to pay? No- 
body else can manage it. Even when the carriage is paid, there is 
still porterage from the station to the place of delivery, which can- 
not be prepaid — sixpence, or eightpence, or a shilling, according to 
the bulk. I really want to understand. Had you any porterage, 
from the station to Holm Hill, to pay for my box? A good New 
Year to the doctor. I would be his ' first foot ' if 1 had a ' wishing 
carpet.' 

Tell me how poor little Mrs. Ewart is. 

Your ever affectionate 

Jane Carlyle. 

LETTER 319. 
To Miss Grace Welsh, Edinburgh. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Jan. 23, 1866. 
My dear Grace, — Have you any more news of Robert? ' I weary 
to hear how he is, though without hope of hearing he is better. 
From the first mention of his illness, I have felt that it was all over 
with the poor lad for this life! 

One thiuks it so sad that one's family should die out! And yet, 
perhaps, it is best (nay, of course it is best, since God has so or- 
dered it!) that a family lying under the doom of a hereditary, 
deadly malady should die out, and leave its room in the universe to 
healthier and happier people! But, again, hereditary maladies 
are not the only maladies that kill; and plenty of mothers have, 
like Mrs. George and Mrs. Robert, seen their children, one after 
another, swept from the earth without consumption having any- 
thing to do with it. It is hard, hard to tell by what death, slow or 
swift, one would prefer to lose one's dearest ones, when lose them 
one must ! 

Figure what has just befallen that dear, kind Dr. B , who 

saved my life (I shall always consider) by taking me under his care 
at St. Leonards. Of all his sous, the most promising was Captain 

P B , risen to be naval captain while still very young. Oh, 

such a handsome, kindly, gallant fellow! He had married a beau- 
tiful girl with a little fortune, and they were the happiest pair! A 
year ago he was made 'Commander' — a signal honour for so young 
a man! and just three weeks ago his wife was confined of her 
second baby, in her mother's house at St. Leonards, the captain 
being away to bring home a ship from somewhere in the West 
Indies. Well! four days ago, in reading his morning newspaper. 

Dr. B read the 'Death of that distinguished officer. Captain 

P— — B , from fever, after three days' illness! ' It is too 

terrible to try to couceive the feelings of a warm-hearted, proud 
father under a shock like that! Not a word of warning! 

I mink that going down of the ' London ' has sent all the blood 
from my heart! Ever since I read its touching details I have felt 
in amaze of sadness, have had no affinity for any but sorrowful 
things, and can find in my whole mind no morsel of cheerful news 
to tell you! Perhaps I am even more stupid than sad; and no 
shamte to me, with a cold in my head, dating from before Christ- 
mas! l It is the only illness I have bad to complain of this winter, 
and is no illness 'to speak of;' but, none the less, it makes me very 
soddei and abject; and, instead of having thoughts in my head, it 
(my hmd) feels to be filled with wool! Fuzzly is the word for how 
I feel, ill through! But I continue to take my three hours' drive 
daily, ill the same. Since I returned from Folkestone in Septem- 
ber, I lave only missed two days! the days of the snowstorm a 
fortnigllt ago; when it was so dangerous for horses to travel, that 
the vera omnibuses struck work. And besides the forenoon drive, 
I occasionally, with this w r ool in my bead, go out to dinner ! ! ! 
With a Itat bottle at my feet, and wrapt in fur, I take no hurt, and 
the talkmirs me up. Dr. Quain told me I 'couldn't take a better 
remedy, i only I drank plenty of champagne ' — a condition which 
I, for ona never find any difficulty in complying with! 
My chiif intimates have been away all this winter, which has 

'Jncle Ribert's only surviving son, who had returned from sea in a 
erous sfete of health. 



made my life less pleasant — Lady Ashburton on the Continent, and 
Miss Davenport Bromley waiting in the country till the new paint 
smell should have gone out of her house. But there are always 
nice people to take the place of those absent. It made me laugh, 
dear, that Edinburgh notion, that because Mr. C. had been made 
Rector of the University, an office purely honorary, we should im- 
mediately proceed to tear ourselves up by the roots, and transplant 
ourselves there! 

After thirty years of London, and with such society as we have 
in London, to bundle ourselves off to Edinburgh, to live out the 
poor remnaut of our lives in a new and perfectly uncongenial 
sphere, with no consolations that I know of but your three selves, 
and dear old Betty! Achf 'A wishing carpet ' on which I could 
sit down, and be transported to Craigenvilla, for an hour's talk 
with you all, two or three times a week, and — back again! — would 
be a most welcome fairy gift to me! But no ' villa at Morningside' 
tempts me, except your villa! And for Edinburgh people — those I 
knew are mostly dead and gone; and the new ones would astonish 
me much if they afforded any shadow of compensation for the 
people I should leave here! No, my dear, we shall certainly not 
go 'to live in Edinburgh;' I only wish Mr. C. hadn't to go to 
deliver a speech iu it, for it will tear him to tatters. 

Love to you all. Affectionately, 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 320. 
To Mrs. Russell, Holm Hill. 

5 Cheyne Row: January 29, 1866. 

The town is no longer 'empty.' All my most intimate friends 
are come back, except Lady Ashburton, who, alas! will still re- 
main on the Continent, and give no certain promise of return. 
Her rheumatism is better; but there are family reasons for her 
avoiding England at present, which she considers imperative, 
though her friends find them chimerical enough. Miss Davenport 
Bromley is back; the Alderley Stanleys, the Airlies, the Frondes, 
&c. &c. We were much surprised by the Lothians coming to London 
some two or three weeks ago. They had not stirred from New- 
battle Abbey for two years! The poor young Marquis came the 
whole journey in one day. Some hope of electricity had been put 
into his head, and they had been trying it on him. He said he 
' did not think it had done him any harm as yet; but that was the 
most he could say.' He is the saddest spectacle I have seen for 
long. His body more than half dead, his face so worn with suffer- 
ing, and the soul looking out of him as bright as in his best days. 
I had not seen him since before my own illness; and I was shocked 
with the change, especially in his voice, which, from being most 
musical, had become harsh and husky. She. poor soul, bears up 
wonderfully; but is so white and sad, that I cannot look at her 
without dreading for her the fate of her mother. 

The house (ours) goes on peaceably enough on the whole; not 
without cries of ill temper, of course. But I have got Jessie pretty 
well in hand now. It is mortifying, after all my romantic hopes of 
her, to find that kindness goes for nothing with her, and that she is 
only amenable to good sharp snubbing. Well, she shall have it! 
At the same time, I make a point of being just to her and being 
kind to her, as a mistress to a servant. So she got the ' nice dress' 
at Christmas, along with Mrs. Warren ; but I put no affection into 
anything I do for her, and let her see that I don't. It was a lucky 
Christmas for her. Mr. Ruskin always gives my servants a sover- 
eign apiece at that season. ' The like had never happened to her 
before,' she was obliged to confess. She went to the theatre one 
night with some Fergussons, and has acquaintances enough. So I 
hope she is happy, though I don't like her. 

Has the Doctor seen young Corson, who had to leave Swan and 
Edgar's with a bad knee? He came here several times to see 
Jessie. Love to the Doctor. Yours ever, 

J. C. 

How is Mrs. Ewart? 

LETTER 321. 

Miss Ann Welsh, Edinburgh. 

5 Cheyne Row: Monday, March 27, 1866. 

My dear Aunts, — It is long since I have written, and I have not 
leisure for a satisfactory letter even now; but I want you to have 
these two admissions in good time, in case you desire to hear poor 
Mr. C.'s address, and don't know how to manage it. If you don't 
care about it, or can't for any other reason use the admissions, or 
either of them, please return them to me forthwith; for the thing 1 
comes off this day week and there is a great demand for them. 

Mr. C. was too modest, wheu asked by the University people 
how many admissions he wished reserved for himself, aud re- 
quired only twenty for men and six for women, or, as I suppose 
they would say in Edinburgh, 'ladies.' Four have been given 
away to ladies who have shown him great kindness at one time or 
other; and the two left he sends to you, in preference to some dozen 
other ladies who have applied for them directly or indirectly. So 

1 Carlyle's address to the students as Lord Rector.— J. A. F. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



149 



you see the propriety of my request to have one or botli returned if 
you are prevented from using them yourselves. 

I am afraid, and he himself is certain, his address will be a sad 
break-down to human expectation. He has had no practice in pub- 
lic speaking — hating it with all his heart. And then he does speuk\; 
does not merely read or repeat from memory a composition elabor- 
ately prepared — in fact, as in the case of his predecessors, printed 
before it was ' delivered'! 

I wish him well through it, for I am very fearful the worry and 
flurry of the thing will make him ill. After speculating all winter 
about going myself, my heart failed me as the time drew near, and 
I realised more clearly the nervousness and pain in by back that so 
much fuss was sure to bring on. I did not dread the bodily fatigue, 
but the mental. We were to have broken the journey by stopping 
■ a few days at Lord Houghton's, in Yorkshire, and after giving up 
Edinburgh, I thought for a while I would still go as far as the 
Houghton's, and wait there till Mr. C. returned. But that part of 
the business I also decided against, only two days since, preferring 
to reserve Yorkshire till summer, and till I was in a more tranquil 
frame of mind. 

Mr. C. is going to stay while in Edinburgh at Thomas Erskine's, 
our dear old friend; not, however, because of liking him better than 
anyone else there, but because of his being most out of the way of 
— railway whistles! It was worth while, however, to have talked 
of accompanying Mr. O, to have given so much enthusiastic hospi- 
tality an opportunity for displaying itself. 

One of the letters of invitation I had quite surprised me by its 
warmth and eagerness, being from a quarter wherel hardly believed 
myself remembered — David Aitken and Eliza Stoddart! They had 
both grown into sticks, I was thinking. But I have no time to 
gossip. 

Do send me soon some word of Robert, 1 though I know too well 
there can no good news come. 

Affectionately yours, 

J. W. Carlyle. 
LETTER 322. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., T. Ms/cine, Esq., Edinburgh. 

Cheyne Row: Good Friday, March 30, 1866. 
' Dearest, — What with your being on the road, and what with the 
regulations of Good Friday, I don't know when this will reach you. 
Indeed I don't know anything about anything. I feel quite stupe- 
fied. I should have liked to have seen your handwriting this morn- 
ing, though none the less obliged to Mr. Tyndall, who makes the 
best of your having had a bad night. What a dear, warm-hearted 
darling he is! I should like to kiss him! I did sleep some last night 
— the first wink since the night before you left. Last evening 1 felt 
quite smashed, so willingly availed myself of the feeble pen of 
Maggie, 2 who had walked in ' quite promiscuous.' She was back at 
Agnes Baird's, and had fixed to leave for Liverpool on Saturday. 
For decency's sake I asked her to come here instead and stay over 
Sunday, which she agreed to do. She will be company to James. 3 
He didn't come back to sleep last night, having accepted an invita- 
tion from somebody (McGeorge?) at Islington, with whom he was 
going to spend Good Friday out of town somewhere. He had ' not 
quite' concluded about his office — ' all but;' had failed in all attempts 
to find a lodging, but this McGeorge 'would help him in looking,' 
he thought. I pressed him to keep his bed here till he was suited, 
but he ' would be nearer his office at McGeorge's.' He is to come 
on Sunday morning, however, to spend the day; and 1 promised 
to take him to Richmond Park or somewhere before dinner. At 
parting, for the present, he tried to make a good little speech about 
my, kindness to him.' Pity he is so dreadfully inarticulate, for 
his meaning is modest and affectionate, poor fellow. 

The sudden intimation of Venturi's death, sleepless as I was at 
the time, stunned me for the rest of the day like a blow on the 
head. He was taken ill in the night at the house of Herbert Tay- 
lor, 4 but would not allow his wife to raise anyone, or to make any 
disturbance, and at five in the morning he was dead. There was 
an examination, that satisfied the doctors he had died of heart 
disease, and that he must have been suffering a great deal, while 
De Musset and other doctors of his acquaintance had treated any 
complaint of illness he made as ' imaginary, the result of his unsat- 
isfactory life.' Poor Emilie is, as you may imagine, 'like death.' 
Mr. Ashurst was trying to prevent a coroner's inquest, but he feared 
it would have to be — to-day. 

Good-bye! Keep up your heart the first three minutes, and after 
that it will be all plain sailing. 

Ever yours, 

J. C. 

LETTER 323. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., T. Erskine's, Esq., Edinburgh. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: April 2, 1866. 
Dearest, — By the time you get this you will be out of your trouble, 
better or worse, but out of it please God. And if ever you let your- 

• Her dying cousin. * Maggie Welsh. 

3 Aitken, now attempting business in the City. 

4 John Mill's stepson-in-law. 



self be led or driven into such a horrid thing again, I will never foi» 
give you — never! 

What I have been suffering, vicariously, of late days is not to be 
told. If you had been to be hanged I don't see that I could have 
taken it more to heart. This morning after about two hours of off- 
and-on sleep, I awoke, long before daylight, to sleep no more. 
While drinking a glass of wine and eating a biscuit at five in the 
morning, it came into my mind, ' What is he doing, 1 wonder, at 
this moment? ' And then, instead of picturingyou sitting smoking 
up the stranger-chimney, or anything else that was likely to be, I 
found myself always dropping off into details of a regular execution ! 
— Now they will be telling him it is time! now they will be pinion- 
ing his arms and saying last words! Oh, mercy! was I dreaming 
or waking? was I mad or sane? Upon my word, I hardly know now. 
Only that I have been having next to no sleep all the week, and 
that at the best of times I have a too ' fertile imagination,' like 'oor 
David.' 1 When the thing is over I shall be content, however it 
have gone as to making a good ' appearance ' or a bad one. That 
you have made your ' address.' and are alive, that is what I long to 
hear, and, please God! shall hear in a few hours. My 'imagina- 
tion ' has gone the length of representing you getting up to speak 
before an awful crowd of people, and, what with fuss, and ' bad 
air,' and confusion, dropping down dead. 

Why on earth did you ever get into this galley? 

J. W. C. 

LETTER 324. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., Edinburgh. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Tuesday, April S, 1866. 

I made so sure of a letter this morning from some of you — and 
' nothing but a double letter for Miss Welsh.' Perhaps I should — 
that is, ought to — have contented myself with Tyndall's adorable 
telegram, which reached me at Cheyne Row five minutes after six 
last evening, considering the sensation it made. 

Mrs. Warren and Maggie were helping to dress me for Forster's 
birthday, when the telegraph boy gave his double-knock. ' There 
it is!' I said. 'lam afraid, cousin, it is only the postman,' said 
Maggie. Jessie rushed up with the telegram. I tore it open and 
read, 'From John Tyndall' (Oh, God bless John Tyndall in this 
world and the next!) 'to Mrs. Carlyle.' 'A perfect triumph!' I 
read it to myself, and then read it aloud to the gaping chorus. 
And chorus all began to dance and clap their hands. ' Eh, Mrs. 
Carlyle! Eh, hear to that! ' cried Jessie. ' I told you, ma'am,' 
cried Mrs. Warren, ' I told you how it would be.' ' I'm so glad, 
cousin! you'll be all right now, cousin,' twittered Maggie, executing 
a sort of leap-frog round me. And they went on "clapping their 
hands, till there arose among them a sudden cry for brandy! ' Get 
her some brandy! ' ' Do, ma'am, swallow this spoonful of brandy; 
just a spoonful! For, you see, the sudden solution of the nervous 
tension with which I have been holding in my anxieties for days — 
nay, weeks, past — threw me into as pretty a little fit of hysterics as 
you ever saw. 

I went to Foster's nevertheless, with my telegram in my hand, 
and 'John Tyndall ' in the core of my heart! And it was pleasant 
to see with what hearty good-will all there — Dickens and Wilkie 
Collins as well as Fuz — received the news; and we drank your 
health with great glee. Maggie came in the evening; and Fuz, in 
his joy over you, sent out a glass of brandy to Silvester! Poor 
Silvester, by-the-by, showed as much glad emotion as anybody on 
my telling him you had got well through it. 

Did you remember Craik's paper? I am going to take Maggie 
to the railway for Liverpool. I suppose I shall now calm down 
and get sleep again by degrees. I am smashed for the present. 

J. W. C. 
LETTER 325. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., Edinburgh. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Wednesday, April 4, 1866. 

Well! I do think you might have sent me a 'Scotsman' this 
morning, or ordered one to be sent! I was up and dressed at seven; 
and it seemed such an interminable time till a quarter after nine, 
when the postman came, bringing only a note about — Cheltenham, 
from Geraldine! The letter I had from Tyndall yesterday might 
have satisfied any ordinary man or woman, you would have said. 
But I don't pretend to be an ordinary man or woman; I am per- 
fectly extraordinary, especially in the power I possess of fretting 
and worrying myself into one fever after another, without any 
cause to speak of! What do you suppose I am worrying about 
now? — because of the 'Scotsman' not having come! That there 
may be in it something about your having fallen ill, which you 
wished me not to see! this I am capable of fancying at moments; 
though last evening I saw a man who had seen you ' smoking very 
quietly at Masson's;' and had heard your speech, and — what was 
more to the purpose (his semi-articulateness taken into account) — 
brought me, what he said was as good an account of it as any he 
could give, already in ' The Pall Mall Gazette,' written by a hearty 
admirer of long standing evidently. It was so kind of Macmillan 

1 A lying boy at Haddington, whom his mother excused in that way. 



150 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 



to come to me before he bad slept. He had gone in the morning 
straight from the railway to his shop and work. He seemed still 
under the emotion of the thing; — tears starting to his black eyes 
every time he mentioned any moving part ! ! 

Now just look at that! If here isn't, at half after eleven, when 
nobody looks for the Edinburgh post, your letter, two newspapers, 
and letters from my aunt Anne, Thomas Erskine, and ' David Ait- 
ken besides.' I have only as yet read your letter. The rest will 
keep now. I had a nice letter from Henry Davidson yesterday, as 
good as a newspaper critic. What pleases me most in this business 
— I mean the business of your success — is the hearty personal affec- 
tion towards you that comes out on all hands. These men at For- 
ster's with their cheering — our own people — even old Silvester turn- 
ing as white as a sheet, and his lips quivering when he tried to ex- 
press his gladness over the telegraph : all that is positively delight- 
ful, and makes the success ' a good joy ' to me. No appearance of 
envy or grudging in anybody; but one general, loving, heartfelt 
throwing up of caps with young and old, male and female! If we 
could only sleep, dear, and what you call digest, wouldn't it be 
nice? 

Now I must go; I promised to try and get Madame Venturi out 
with me for a little air. She has been at her brother's, quite near 
Forster's, since the funeral. The history she herself gave me of 
the night of his death was quite excruciating. He took these spasms 
which killed him, soon after they went to bed; and till five in the 
morning the two poor souls were struggling on, he positively forbid- 
ding her to give an alarm. Mrs. Taylor had a child just recovering 
from scarlet fever, and sent from home for fear of infecting the 
others. When Emilie would have gone to the Taylors' bedroom to 
tell them, he said, ' Consider the poor mother!" If you rouse her 
suddenly, she will think there has come bad news of her child! It 
might do her great harm.' 'And I thought, dear, there was no 
danger,' she said to me. 'The doctors had so constantly said he had 
no ailment but indigestion.' It was soon after this that he ' threw 
up his arms as if he had been shot; and fixed his eyes with a strange 
wondering look, as if he saw something beautiful and surprising; 
and then fell to the floor dead ! ' I am so glad she likes me to 
come to her, for it shows she is not desperate. 

Oh, dear, I wish you had been coming straight back! 1 for it 
would be so quiet for you here just now. there isn't a soul left in 
London but Lady William, whom I haven't seen since the day you 
left. I am afraid she is unwell. 

Good-bye! We have the sweeps to-day in the drawing-room, and 
elsewhere. Affectionately yours, 

Jane W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 326. 

Read near Cleughbrae, on the road to Scotsbrig. Came thither, 
Saturday, April 7. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., Scotsbrig, 

5 Cheytie Row: Friday, April 6, 1866. 

Dearest, — Scotsbrig, I fancy, will be the direction now. 

I am just getting ready to start for Windsor, to stay a day and 
night, or two nights if the first be successful, with Mrs. Oliphant. 
Even that much ' change of air ' and ' schane ' ■ may, perhaps, 
break the spell of sleeplessness that has overtaken me. It is easier 
to go off one's sleep than to go on to it. I did rather better last 
night, however, after an eight o'clock dinner with the Lothians. 
The American, Mason, was there — a queer, fine old fellow, with a 
touch of my grandfather Walter in him. Both Lord and Lady, and 
the beauty, Lady Adelaide, were so kind to me. It made me like 
to ' go off,' to hear the young Marquis declaring ' how much he 
wished he could have heard your speech.' He looked perfectly 
lovely yesterday, much more cheerful and bright than I have seen 
him since he came to London. They seemed to take the most affec- 
tionate interest in the business. 

Lady William, too, charged me with a long message I haven't 
time for here. I found her in bed in the middle of newspapers, 
which she had been ' reading and comparing all the morning; and 
had discovered certain variations in!' I am to dine with her on 
Sunday, after my return from Windsor. Miss Bromley is come 
back; she came yesterday, and I am to dine with her on Tuesday. 
I needn't be dull, yon see, unless 1 like! 

Will you tell Jamie the astonishing fact that I have eaten up all 
the meal he sent me, and cannot live without cakes. Ergo! Also 
take good care of Betty's tablecloth! 3 She writes me it was her 
mother's spening. She was awfully pleased at your visit. 'What 
ami, Oder me, to be so vesated! ' Here is an exuberant letter 
from Charles Kingsley. Exuberant letters, more of them than I 
can ever hope to answer. Lady Airlie offers to come and drink 
tea with me on Sunday night. 'Can't be done' — must write in 
this hurry to put her off. Even I have my hurries, you see. Kind 
love to Jamie and the rest. 

Yours ever, 

J. W. C. 



1 Oh, that I had— alas, alas! 

s Old grandfather Walter's 'vaary the schane.' 

a A gift of poor Betty's— never to arrive. 



LETTER 327. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., Scotsbrig. 

5 Cheyne Row: Tuesday, April 10, 1866. 

Alas, I missed Tyndall's call! and was ' vaixed! ' He left word 
with Jessie that you were ' looking well ; and every body worship- 
ping you! ' and I thought to myself, 'A pity if he have taken the . 
habit of being worshipped, for he may find some difficulty in keep- 
ing it up here! ' 

Finding the first night at Windsor (Friday night) a great success, 
I gladly stayed a second night; and only arrived at Cheyne Row in 
time for Lady William's Sunday dinner. It couldn't be 'quiet' 
that helped me to sleep so well at Mrs. Oliphant's; for all day long 
I was in the presence of fellow-creatures. The first evening, besides 
two Miss Tullochs living in the house, there arrived to tea and sup- 
per (!) a family of Hawtreys, to the number of seven ! — seven grown- 
up brothers and sisters!! The eldest, 'Mr. Stephen,' with very 
white hair and beard, is Master of Mathematics at Eton; and has a 
pet school of his own — tradesmen's sons, and the like — on which 
he lays out three hundred a year of his own money. He compli- 
mented me on your 'excellent address,' which he said ' We read 
aloud to our boys.' I asked Mrs. Oliphant after, what boys he 
meant? She said it would be the boys of his hobby school ; they 
were the only boys in the world for Mr. Stephen! On the follow- 
ing day arrived Principal Tulloch, and wife, on a long visit. Mrs. 
Oliphant seems to me to be eaten up witli long visitors. He (the 
Principal) had been at the ' Address,' and seen you walking in your 
wideawake with your brother, just as himself was leaving Edin- 
burgh. 

Frederick Elliot and Hay ward (!) were at Lady William's. Hay- 
ward was raging against the Jamaica business — would have had 
Eyre cut into small pieces, and eaten raw. He told me women 
might patronize Eyre — that women were naturally cruel, and rather 
liked to look on while horrors were perpetrated. But no man liv- 
ing could stand up for Eyre now! ' I hope Mr. Carlyle does,' I 
said. 'I haven't had an opportunity of asking him; but I should 
be surprised and grieved if I found him sentimentalising over a 
pack of black brutes! ' After staring at me a moment: 'Mr. Car- 
lyle!' said Hayward. 'Oh, yes! Mr. Carlyle! one cannot indeed 
swear what he will not say! His great aim and philosophy of life 
being " The smallest happiness of t lie fewest number!"' 

I slept very ill again, that night of my return; but last night was 
better, having gone to bed dead weary of such a tea-party as you 
will say could have entered into no human head but mine! Sarto- 
sina.' Count Reichenbach, and James Aitkeu! ! there was to have 
been also Lady Airlie! ! ! You have no idea how well Reichenbach 
and James suit each other! They make each other quite animated, 
by the delight each seems to feel in finding a man more inarticulate 
than himself! They got towards the end into little outbursts of 
laughter, of a very peculiar kind ! Yours ever, 

Jane Carlyle. 

Send me a proof ■ as soon as you can. 



LETTER 328. 

I still in Edinburgh on that fated visit. I called on Mrs. Stirling; 
the last time I haveseen her. This letter was dated only ten days 
before the utter finis. 

The sudden death mentioned here, minutely and sympathetically 
described in a letter to me, was that of Madame Venturi's (born 
Ashurst's) Italian husband, 3 with both of whom she was familiar. 
— T. C. 

To Mrs. Stirling, Hill Street, Edinburgh. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Wednesday, April 11, 1866. 

My dear Susan Hunter, — No change of modern times would have 
surprised me more disagreeably than your addressing me in any 
other style than the old one. The delight of you is just the faith 
one has— has always had— in your constancy. One mayn't see you 
for twenty years, but one woiild go to you at the end with perfect 
certainty of being kissed as warmly and made as much of as when 
we were together in the age of enthusiasm. 

I was strongly tempted to accompany Mr. C. to Edinburgh and 
see you all once more. But, looked at near hand, my strength, or 
rather my courage, failed me in presence of the prospective demand 
on my 'finer sensibilities.' Since my long, terrible illness, I have 
had to quite leave off seeking emotions, and cultivating them. I hud 
done a great deal too much of that sort of work in my time. Even 
at this distance I lost my sleep, and was tattered to fiddle-strings 
for a week by that flare-up of popularity in Edinburgh. To be 
sure the sudden death of an apparently healthy young man, hus- 
band of one of my most intimate friends, had shocked me into an 
unusually morbid mood ; to say nothing of poor Craik struck down 
whilst opening his mouth to reprove a pupil. I had got it into my 

1 A tailor's daughter, in the Kensington region, a modest yet ardent 
admirer, whom, liking the tone of her letter, she drove to see, and liked, and 
continued to like. 

s Correcting to the Edinburgh printer of the Address. A London pirate 
quite forestalled me and it. 

3 See page 290. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH GARLYLE. 



151 



' hat the previous sleeplessness and fatigue, and the fuss and 

is of a crowded loom, and the novelty of the whole thins;, 

it i take such effect on Mr. C. that when he stood up to speak 

d probably drop down dead I Wheu at six o'clock I got a 

i from Professor Tyndall to tell me it was over, and well 

lie relief was so sudden aud complete, that I (what my cook 

went off '—that is, took a violent fit of crying, and had 

;iven me. 

rery busy and cannot write along letter; but a short one, 
ing the old love and a kiss, will be better than 'silence,' 
■ ' golden.' Your very affectionate 

J. W. Carlyle. 

LETTER 329. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., Scotsbrig. 

5 Cheyne Row: Thursday, April IS, 1866. 

est, — I sent you better than a letter yesterday — a charming 

' which I hope you received in clue course; but Geraldine 

ok the posting of it, and, as Ann said of her long ago, 

in write books, but I'm sure it's the only thing she's fit for.' 

ere only wanted to complete your celebrity that you should 

Hie thief place of 'Punch ';' and there you are, cape and 

ike, making a really creditable appearance. I must repeat 

) n;i id before — that the best part of this success is the general 

>f personal goodwill that pervades all they say aud write 

u. Even ' Punch ' cuddles you, aud purrs over you, as if 

ere his favourite sou. From 'Punch' to Terry the green- 

i ; a good step. but. let me tell you, he (Terry) asked Mrs. 

i — ' Was Mr. Carlyle the person they wrote of as Lord Rec- 

1 Mrs. Warren having answered in her stage voice, 'The 

me! ' Terry shouted out ('Quite shouted it, ma'm!'), 'I 

! ' was so glad of anything! By George, I am glad!' Both 

r -. Warren aud Jessie rushed out and bought ' Punches ' to send 

families; aud, in the fervour of their mutual enthusiasm, 

ive actually ceased hostilities — for the present. It seems to 

on every new compliment paid you these women run and 

thing, such savoury smells reach me upstairs. 

Lothian was here the day before yesterday with a remarka- 

- Mrs. L . I was to tell you that she (Lady L.) was 

skj impatient for your return — 'missed you dreadfully.' I was 
sume day before luncheon, and then we could go — some- 
To Miss Evans- is where we should go still, if you would 

I forget my oatmeal, 
is a large sheet from the Pall Mall Bank, acknowledging 
■ipt of seventy pounds 'only.' I don't forward any non- 
ers come to you. This one inclosed has sex aud youth to 
or it — so, Yours ever, 

J. W. C. 

dndest regards to Mary, 3 for whom I have made a cap, you 
her, but couldn't get it finished before you left. 



LETTER 330. 
T. Carlyle, Esq., Scotsbrig. 

5 Cheyne Row: Friday, April, 13, 1866. 

)h, what a pity, dear, and what a stupidity I must say! After 
rifely through so many fatigues aud dangers to go and 
our ankle, off your own feet! And sucli treatment the 
ill get! Out you will go with it morning and night, along 
lest roads, and keep up the swelling Heaven knows how 
The only comfort is that ' Providence is kind to women, 
d drunk people,' aud in the matter of taking care of your- 
come under the category of 'fools,' if ever any wise man 

came a note for you last night that will surprise you at 
as much as it did me, though I daresay it won't make you 
I give a little scream as it did me. 4 'it — such a note! — is 
lore friendly than silence, but it is more polite. I wish I 
nt him that kind message. Virtue (forgiveness of wrong, 
". human kindness,' and all that sort of 'damned thing ') 
ver its own reward, unless something particular occurs to 
which it almost, invariably does. 

I must get ready for that blessed carriasre. I have been 
up all morning. Ever yours, 

J. W. Carltle. 

• would be good to send back Mill's letter, that Reichenbach 
ell Lowe 6 of it. 

■ It -i me to Scotsbrig, with this letter, late at night; how merry it made us 
■ m v en! 'merry!' 
i : . . .us ' George Eliot ' (or some such pseudonym). 3 Sister, 

from John Mill— response about some trifle, after long delay. 
German, unknown to me) wanted to translate something of Mill's, 
nd had applied, through Reichenbach, to me on the matter. 



LETTER 331. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., Scotsbrig. 

5 Cheyne Row: Tuesday, April 17, 1866. 

Oh, my dear, these women are too tiresome! Time after time I 
have sworn to send ou none of their nonsense, but to burn it or to 
let it lie, as I do all about ' ,' and there is always ' a some- 
thing' that touches me ou their behalf. Here is this Trimnell! 
She was doomed, and should have been cast into outer darkness 
(of the cupboard) but for that poor little phrase, ' as much as my 

weak brains will permit.' And the Caroline C (who the deuce 

is she that writes such a scratchy, illegible baud?) seuds her love to 
Mrs. Carlyle, and proposes to 'talk to her about Amisfield and 
Haddington.' 'Encouraged by your brother to beg.' &c. &c, 
complicates the question still further. Yes, it is the mixing up of 
things that is ' the great bad.' ' 

I called at the Royal Institution yesterday to ask if Tyndall had 
returned. He was there; and I sat some time with him in his 
room hearing the minutest details of 3 r our doiugs aud sufferings on 
the journey. It is the event of Tyndall's life! Crossing the hail, 
I noticed for the first time that officials were hurrying about; and 
I asked the one nearest me, 'Is there to be lecturing here to-day?' 
The man gave me such a look, as if I was deeranged, and people 
goiug up the stairs turned and looked at me as if 1 was deeranged. 
Neuberg ran down to me and asked, ' Wouldn't I hear the lec- 
ture? ' And by simply going out when everyone else was going in 
I made myself an object of general interest. As I looked back 
from the carriage window I saw all heads in the hall and on the 
stairs turned towards me. 

I called at Miss Bromley's after. She had dined at Marochetti's 
on Saturday, being to go with them to some spectacle after. The 
spectacle which she saw without any going was a great fire of 
Marochetti's studio — furnaces overheated in casting Laudseer's 
' great lion.' 

How dreadful that poor woman's 2 suicide! What a deal of mis- 
ery it must take to drive a working-woman to make away with 
her life! What does Dr. Carlyle moke of such a case as that? No 
idleness, nor luxury, nor novel-reading to make it all plain. 3 

Ever yours, J. W. C. 



LETTER 332. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., Scotsbrig. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea: Thursday, April 19, 1866. 

I read the Memoir 4 'first' yesterday morning, having indeed 
read the ' Address ' the evening before, and read in some three 
times in different newspapers. If you call that ' laudatory,' you 
must be easily pleased. I never read such stupid, vulgar jauners. 6 
The last of calumnies that I should ever have expected to hear 
uttered about you was this of your going about 'filling '.he laps of 
dirty children with comfits.' Idiot! My half-pound of barley-sugar 
made into such a legend! The wretch has even failed to put the right 
number to the sketch of the bouse— 'No. 7! ' A luck, since be 
was going to blunder, that he didn't call it No. 6, with its present 
traditions. It is prettily enough done, the house. I recollect look- 
ing over the blind one morning and seeing a young man doing it. 
'What can he be doing?' I said to Jessie. 'Oh, counting the 
windows for the taxes,' she answered quite confidently; and I was 
satisfied. 

I saw Frederick Chapman yesterday, and he was very angry. 
He had ' frightened the fellow out of advertising,' he said; and he 
had gone round all the booksellers who had subscribed largely for 
the spurious Address, and required them to withdraw their otders. 
By what right, I wonder? Difficulty of procuring it will only make 
it the more sought after, I should think. 'By making it felony, 
ma'am, yourselves have raised the price of getting your dogs back.' 5 

I didn't, write yesterday because, in the first place I was very 
sick, .'11111 in the second place I got a moral shock, ' that stunned me 
pro tempore. No time to tell you about that just now, but an- 
other day. 

I have put the women to sleep in your bed to air it. It seems so 
lone; since you went away. 

Imagine the tea party I am to have on Saturday 8 night. Mrs. 
Oliphant, Principal Tullocli and wife and two grown-up daugh- 
ters, Mr. and Mrs. Fronde, Mr. and Mrs. Spottiswoode! 

Did you give Jane the things I sent? 9 When one sends a thing 
one likes to know if it has been received safe. 

Yours ever, 

J. W. C. 

1 Reiehenbach's phrase. 

2 A poor neuralgic woman, near Scotsbrig— a daughter of old Betty Smail's 
(mentioned already?— ' head like a mall,' &c). 

3 Alas! that was a blind, hasty, and cruel speech of poor, good John's! 
* By London pirate. 

6 Capital Scotch word. 

8 London dog-stealers pleaded so, on the Act passed against them. 

7 What I could never guess. 
a Oh, Heaven! 

8 I did, and told her so in the letter she never received. Why should / ever 
read this again 1 (Note of 1866.) 






r>: 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE. 






LETTER 333. 



The last words her hand ever wrote. Why should I tear my 
heart by reading them so often? They reached me at Dumfries, 
Sunday, April 22, fifteen hours after the fatal telegram had come. 
Bright weather this, and the day before I was crippling out Ter- 
regles way, among the silent green meadows, at the moment when 
she left this earth. 

Spottiswoodes, King's Printer people. I durst never see them 
since. Miss Wynne, I hear, is dead of cancer six months ago. 

' Very equal,' a thrifty Annandale phrase. 

' Sceude da carrozza' (Degli Antoni). 

' Picture of Frederick.' I sent for it on the Tuesday following, 
directly on getting to Chelsea. It still hangs there; a poor enough 
Potsdam print, but to me priceless. 

I am at Addiscom.be iu the room that was long ' Lady Harriet's; ' 
day and house altogether silent, Thursday, August 5, 1809, while 
I finish this unspeakable revisal (reperusal and study of all her 
letters left to me). Task of about eleven months, and sad and 
strange as a pilgrimage through Hades. — T. C. 

T. Carlyle, Esq., The Hill, Dumfries. 

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea : Saturday, April 21 , 1866. 

Dearest, — It seems 'just a consuming of time ' to write to-day, 
when you are coming the day after to-morrow. But ' if there were 
nothing else in it' (your phrase) such a piece of liberality as letting 
one have letters on Sunday, if called for, should be honoured at 
least by availing oneself of it! All long stories, however, may be 
postponed till next week. Indeed, I have neither long stories nor 
short ones to tell this morning. To-morrow, after the tea-party, I 
may have more to say, provided I survive it! Though how I am 
to entertain, 'on my own basis,' eleven people in a hot night 
' without refreshment ' (to speak of) is more than I ' see my way ' 
through! Even as to cups — there are only ten cups of company- 
china; and eleven are coming, myself making twelve! ' After all,' 
said Jessie, ' you had once eight at tea — three mair won't kill us! ' 
I'm not so sure of that. Let us hope the motive will sanctify the 
end; being ' the welfare of others!' an unselfish desire to 'make 
two Ba-ings happy:' Principal Tulloch and Froude, who have a 
great liking for one another! The Spottiswoodes were added iu 
the same philanthropic spirit. We met in a shop, and they begged 
permission to come again; so I thought it would be clever to get 
them over (handsomely with Froude and Mrs. Oliphant) before you 
came. Miss Wynne offered herself, by accident, for that same 
night. ■" 

The Marchioness was here yesterday, twice; called at four when 
I hadn't returned, and called at five. She brought with her yester- 
day a charming old Miss Talbot, with a palsied head, but the most 
loveable babyish old face! She seemed to take to me, as I did to 
her; and Lady Lothian stayed behind a minute, to ask if I would 
go with her some day to see this Miss Talbot, who had a house full 
of the finest pictures. You should have sent the Address to Lord 
Lothian or Lady. I see several names on the list less worthy of 
such attention. 

Chapman is furious at Hotten; no wonder! When he went 
round to the booksellers, he found that everywhere Ilotten had 
got the start of him. Smith and Elder had bought five hundred 
copies from Hotten! And poor Frederick did not receive his 
copies from Edinburgh till he had ' telegraphed,' six-and-thirty 
hours after I had received mine. 

I saw in an old furniture-shop window at Richmond a copy of 
the Frederick picture that was lent you — not bad; coarsely painted, 
but the likeness well preserved. Would you like to have it? I 
will, if so, make you a present of it, being to be had ' very equal.' 
I 'descended from the carriage,' and asked. 'What was that?' 
(meaning what price was it). The broker told me impressively, 
'That, ma'am, is Peter the Great.' 'Indeed! and what is the 
price?' ' Seven-ami sixpence.' I offered live shillingson the spot, 
lint, he would only come down to six shillings. I will go back for 
it if you like, and can find a place for it on my wall. 

Yours ever, 

J. W. C. 

On the afternoon of the day on which the preceding letter was 
written, Mrs. Carlyle died suddenly in her carriage in Hyde Park. 
A letter of Miss Jewsbury's relating the circumstances which at- 
tended and followed her death has been already published in the 
' Reminiscences.' I reprint it here as a fit close to this book. — 
J. A. F. 

To Thomas Carlyle. 

' 43 Markham Square, Chelsea: May 26, 1866. 

' Dear Mr. Carlyle, — I think it. better to write than to speak on 
the miserable subject about which you told me to inquire of Mr. 
Silvester. 1 I saw him to-day. He said that it would be about 



1 Mrs. Carlyle's coachman. 



twenty minutes after three o'clock or thereabouts when tli 
Mr. Forster's house; that he then drove through the Queen' 
close by Kensington Gardens, that there, at the uppermost 
she got out, and walked along the side of the Gardens very s 
about two hundred paces, with the little dog running, 'un 
came to the Serpentine Bridge, at the southern eud of wlii 
got into the carriage again, and he drove on till they cam 
quiet place on the Tyburnia side, near Victoria Gate, and th 
put out the little dog to run along. When they came o] 
to Albion Street, Stanhope Place (lowest thoroughfare o 
towards Marble Arch), a brougham coming along upset th ■:- 
which lay on its back screaming for a while, and then she 
the check-string; and he turned round and pulled up at tl 
of the foot-path, and there the dog was (he had got up out 
road and gone there). Almost before the carriage stop) 
was out of it. The lady whose brougham had caused the a 
got out also, and several other ladies who were walkit ; ha 
stopped round the dog. The lady spoke to her; but he co 
hear what she said, and the other ladies spoke. She thei ifte< 
the dog into the carriage, and got iu herself. He asked 
little dog was hurt; but he thinks she did not hear him, i 

riages were passing. He heard the dog squeak as if she hi 
feeling it (nothing but a toe was hurt); this was the last so :n 
sigh he ever heard from her place of fate. He went on t 
Hyde Park Corner, turned there and drove past the Duke ( 
lington's Achilles figure, up the drive to the Serpentine ai I 
it, and came round by the road where the dog was hurt, i j 
Duke of Wellington's house and past the gate opposite St. G 
Getting no sign (noticing only the two hands laid on the la] 
uppermost the right hand, reverse way the left, and all l itio 
less), he turned into the Serpentine drive again; but after 
yards, feeling a little surprised, he looked back, and, seeing 
the same posture, became alarmed, made for the streetv. 
trance into the Park a few yards westward of gatekeeper's 
ami asked a lady to look in; and she said what we know, ; ! 

addressed a gentleman who confirmed her fears. It was tin 
a quarter past four; going on to twenty minutes (but nea 
quarter); of this he is quite certain. She was leaning back 
corner of the carriage, rugs spread over her knees; her ey< 
closed, and her upper lip slightly, slightly opened. Thoi v In 
saw her at the hospital and when in the carriage speak 
beautiful expression upon her face. 

'On that miserable night, when we were preparing to c r 
her, Mrs. Warren 1 came to me. and said, that one time, wli 
was very ill, she said to her, that when the last had come, si 
to go upstairs into the closet of the spare room and tin 
would find two wax candles wrapt iu paper, and that thus ■■ j 
to be lighted and burned. She said that after she came to 
London" she wanted to give a party; her mother wished evei 
to be very nice, and went out and bought candles and conf 
ery, and set out a table, pnd lighted the room quite splei. 
and called her to come and see it when all was prepared, 
was angry; she said people would say she was extravagant 
would ruin her husband. She took away two of the candle: 
some of the cakes. Her mother was hurt and began to weep, 
was pained at once at what she had done; she tried to coi H 
her, and was dreadfully sorry. She took the candles and wn 
them up, and put them where they could be easily found, 
found them and lighted them, and did as she desired. 

■Q. E 

What a strange, beautiful, sublime and almost terrible 
action; silently resolved on, and kept silent, from all the ear 
perhaps twenty-four yearsJ I never heard a whisper of i 
yet see it to be true. The visit must have been about L! 
remember the soiree right well; the resolution, blight as 
heavenly tears and lightning, was probably formed on her mi 
death, February 1842.— T. ('. 

Mrs. Carlyle was buried by the side of her father, in the 
of Haddington Church. These words follow on the turn! 
after her father's name; — 

HERE LIKEWISE NOW RESTS 

JANE WELSH CARLYLE, 

Spouse of Thomas Carlyle, Chelsea, London. 

she was born at haddington, 14tii july, 1801, only daoghtss 

of the above john welsh, and of grace welsh. caplegill, 

dumfriesshire, his wife. in her bright existence she 

had more 80rrows than are common; but also a soft 

invincibility, a clearness of discernment. and a noble 

loyalty of heart./which are rare. for forty years she 

was the true and ever-loving helpmate of her husband, 

and by act and word unweariedly forwarded him, as none 

else could, in all of worthy, that he did or attempted. 

she died at london, 21st april. 1866; suddenly snatched 

away from him, and the light of ks life, as if gone oct 

1 The housekeeper in Cheyne Row. 



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